


Nightshade

by Alexander_L



Series: The Shadow War [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Murder Mystery, POV Felix Hugo Fraldarius, POV Sylvain Jose Gautier, Pining Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:20:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 59,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23121628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexander_L/pseuds/Alexander_L
Summary: Peace and quiet after the war is driving Felix insane. But as much as he hoped for adventure, he didn't want it to come in the form of a serial killer leaving dead bodies in the woods with the crest of Fraldarius carved into them.Sylvain, as worried for his friend's deteriorating sanity as he is for the victims, insists on helping Felix hunt down the killer and as the two of them are thrown back into danger together, they finally find the courage to stop pining and take the leap of admitting how deeply they love each other.Rated E for: violence, profanity, sex, depictions of psychosis, and of course murdered corpses. There is also content revolving around mental health struggles like sleep-deprivation, mania, anxiety and trauma.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: The Shadow War [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1708492
Comments: 54
Kudos: 99





	1. Peace & Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> Note on POV:
> 
> The current narrator of the scene/chapter will be denoted by the header at the top.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After years of war, peace is driving Felix insane. With all his friends having gone their separate ways after the war to rule their own territories and handle their responsibilities, isolation and boredom have taken a toll on him. Sylvain showing up at his door offers a relief to his loneliness but it also brings with it the anxiety and shame of Sylvain seeing him in his rough psychological state.

## 1 – PEACE & QUIET

###  **Great Tree Moon, 1188**

###  **Felix**

“You’re not working,” I mutter at the tea, staring down into my cup suspiciously. “I don’t feel calm. Do your job or I will dump you down the drain.”

What is the point of chamomile if I still feel like a bag stuffed full of cats? It’s not like anyone drinks this shit for the flavor. It barely even has any!

Steeling my nerves, I toss back the whole thing like a shot of cheap whiskey and gag. 

What is this? Cup number four? Or am I on five already?

I get up to make more, but my hands are shaking so badly the cup slips from my grasp and shatters. The sound spooks my strained nerves and I jump, knocking into the table and sending the whole pot crashing onto the floor.

The kitchen door bursts open and a servant girl rushes in, only to stop abruptly and look at me like a startled deer. After a second I realize why when I notice that my sword is drawn, the steel gleaming in the hearthlight as it quivers unsteadily in my trembling hands.

“Lord Fraldarius?” she asks. “Is everything alright?”

I sheathe the sword and give her an awkward nod. “It’s fine. Go away.”

She all but flees the room the second I give her leave to go.

“Fucking lot of good you did,” I swear at the shards of the teapot as I sweep them into a dustpan. “I’m going back to coffee.”

Leaving the kitchen, I return to my chamber on the eastern side of the manor house. And as I walk in, I notice that the first hints of sunlight are beginning to shine through the gaps in the curtains. 

It’s morning already. Too late to rest now.

I could try to go back to bed and hope for an hour or two of sleep before starting the day, but the routine that has structured my life for years is nearly impossible to break at this point.

Dawn means that it is time to head to the training hall, sleep be damned.

I pull on fresh clothes, splash ice-cold water on my face and run my hands through my hair, trying to tie it back in its usual knot. But I can’t get it to stay put and strands keep breaking free and falling across my eyes.

For one moment, I consider grabbing my hunting knife and just cutting it all off right here and now. But some modicum of sanity blessedly remains in my brain and I decide against it.

Whether or not I like it, I am the head of my house now. I have to look the part.

Taking a deep breath, I leave my room and jog over to the training hall. Some of the soldiers are already there, waiting to spar with me, but I send them away. After they leave, I check to make sure I am alone, then lock the door to the hall and walk over to the wooden dummy.

I can’t have anyone seeing how clumsily my swordsmanship is when I am in a state like this, but I also know the only way I am going to sleep is if I exhaust myself to the point where my body is forced to rest with or without the permission of my mind.

At least that’s the theory. It hasn’t worked effectively or consistently these past few months.

I inhale and exhale slowly, focusing my energy and mind as best I can. Then I spring into action, dodging and blocking invisible strikes, forcing my feet to move in the patterns that are normally second-nature to me but now require concentration.

Once my blood is pumping, I turn my fury on the wooden dummy, practicing my attacks. Midway through the exercise, I feel my whole body lurch off balance and my sword rebound off the stone floor with a piercing ring.

I freeze and look down at my blade. What happened?

Did I… did I miss? 

“You aren’t even alive!” I yell at the dummy. “How could I have missed you?”

Its lifeless eyes look at me mockingly and I growl out a curse, glaring back.

“In your defense, it moves pretty fast for an inanimate object,” a voice says behind me.

“Shut up, Sylvain!” I shout.

“Hey, no need to yell. I was just trying to break the awkward silence. Your staring match with that thing was getting intense and I wasn’t sure who was gonna win.”

“I said shut-”

I stop mid-sentence and whirl around to see Sylvain leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“You did get my letter last week, right? And the one before it? And the one before that? I’ve been planning this visit for months!” 

“No, what are you doing here? Did the soldiers let you in?”

“I picked the lock.”

My heart is pounding, not from the exertion of training, but from the panic of being caught. I can’t believe I slipped up and allowed someone to see me in this state. And that of all people it was him.

“It’s funny - an outside observer would probably think you weren’t happy to see me. Good thing I know you better than that,” he says, giving me one of his big, stupid Sylvain smiles.

When he starts walking over to me, I try to sheathe my sword but I fumble and the blade misses the sheathe, slicing across my leg instead. 

“Whoa!” Sylvain says, running over and snatching the blade away. “You need both of those legs, buddy. Don’t go cutting one off.”

“It’s fine!” I snap.

His smile fades to a look of concern. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing is going on.”

I grab the sword back and slip it into its sheath without injuring myself this time. Turning away from him, I start to walk to the door but he grabs my arm.

“Felix…”

“What?” I ask without looking at him.

“I’ve missed you,” he says. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you so much. Are you really going to walk off without even saying hello?”

“I’m bleeding.”

“Well then let me fix that.”

Sylvain kneels down and holds out his hand, light glowing in his palm.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Healing you. Hold still.”

“You’re shit at magic!”

“Well, I’ve been studying it more. I’m pretty good with healing spells now.”

“When have you ever studied anything?”

“Turns out studying is more fun when you’re not actually in school,” he says. “Now hold still damn it!”

I give in and let him work on patching up the wound. As the magic takes effect and my skin begins to painfully fuse back together, I clench my jaw to keep from swearing.

“See? Good as new,” he says, glancing up at me with a smile. 

But my vision is spinning and I feel so light-headed I can barely stand.

I need to get out of here. Now! Before I collapse and he sees even more how pathetic I am. When I last saw him a year ago I was still unstoppable Felix. I can’t let him see how much has changed. I absolutely can’t. Not him. Anyone but him.

I stumble towards the door but trip over my own feet and fall, hitting the stone floor hard enough to make my head reel even more.

“What the-?” Sylvain rushes over and lifts me up. He keeps his hands on my shoulders and studies my face in confusion.

I blink hazily, trying to focus on his face. 

“Fee? What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

“Nothing.”

“Let’s go, uh, have some breakfast. Yeah, breakfast will help. Come on,” he says.

I manage to stay on my feet long enough to make it back to the house, but Sylvain walks closely next to me the whole way, ready at any second to catch me if I fall again.

Shit. DAMN it! He is going to just hover around me until I explain, isn’t he? Of course he is. I’m not going to have a moment’s peace and quiet.

I try to focus on the anger in my thoughts because it is the only thing keeping my shame at bay. But I can’t hold the pretense up for long before I have to admit to myself that I have wanted just that. 

The crushing weight of peace and quiet has been driving me mad to the point where I have started filling it with my own voice, talking to myself, to inanimate objects around me. I’m pretty sure even my cat Wolfie is sick of my talking at this point.

I glance over at Sylvain while he is distracted by greeting my butler Oliver and I feel a bit of hope stir within me as I watch his bright, friendly manner. Maybe it won’t be so lonely around here now that I don’t have to fill the silence. Even his annoying voice prattling on is a much-needed improvement over me cursing at everything constantly.

Sylvain asks Oliver to have some breakfast sent to us, then he grabs my arm and practically drags me up the stairs to my room. When we reach it, I realize that it isn’t me he is excited to see so much as my cat.

“Wolfie!” he cries, scooping him up the second he sees him and cuddling him happily. “How are you doing, you big fluffy bastard?”

Wolfie thrashes his way out of Sylvain’s arms furiously, but once he is free, he saunters back and rubs up against his ankles, purring.

“You want attention but only on your terms?” Sylvain says, kneeling down to pet him. “You take after your owner too much.”

Leaving the two of them to catch up, I sit down on the edge of my bed and pull my hair free of its knot since most of it has already come loose anyways. As I struggle to retie it, Sylvain comes over and sits down beside me.

“You look like hell,” he says.

“Thanks. So do you.”

“Now that’s just hurtful. Most people just lie politely and say that the scar makes me look dangerous and sexy, not ugly.”

Scar?

I look over at him in alarm and realize that earlier with my vision so blurry I didn’t notice the scar tracing down the left side of his face, from his forehead to jaw.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I was out stag hunting, and this bear appeared and-”

“What girl’s father did you piss off?”

“It wasn’t because of a girl!” he says indignantly.

“What boy’s father did you piss off then?”

“I didn’t piss off anyone! No one gets pissed off by me these days. I’m a respectable and lovable man. But you’re right, the bear story I tell everyone is bullshit. The truth is that I caught the tip of a blade while fighting off some bandits trying to rob a merchant caravan. I prefer the ‘I went toe-to-toe with a bear in a fistfight’ story though. After surviving a war, it’s a bit pathetic to admit a petty bandit got the drop on me.”

Pathetic. Sylvain is hardly the pathetic one. Look at him. He's still strong as an ox.

He gets up and walks over to the mirror by my closet, examining his face worriedly. “Damn it! All I have are my looks. If I-”

“It doesn’t,” I interrupt.

“Doesn’t what?”

“Doesn’t make you look ugly.”

He smiles over his shoulder at me. “Good. I wouldn’t want you to have to stare at my face all month if it was hideous.”

“Month?” 

“You did actually read my letters, right? I’m staying for a month. I mean, you wrote me back and agreed and everything. Was it just Oliver forging your handwriting?”

“No, I… I remember now. I just forgot for a minute.”

Sylvain snatches up Wolfie, dumping him into my lap. “Something’s wrong with him. Cheer him up,” he orders the cat.

Wolfie curls up resentfully and on reflex I pet his scruffy gray fur while I stare down at the floor.

Sylvain sits next to me but after several minutes, he swears and says, “That’s it.”

He nudges Wolfie off me and grabs my shoulders, pulling me around to face him and looking intently into my eyes.

“Tell me what’s wrong or I swear to hell, I will-” He stops and sighs, knowing that threatening me is pointless. “Please,” he says in a gentler tone. “Tell me the truth. I’ve never seen you like this. It’s scaring me. What happened?”

“Nothing has happened.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“That’s what’s wrong: nothing has happened. It’s driving me crazy, and I mean that literally. I’ve lost my mind.” 

Why am I telling him this? Damn Sylvain and that stupid face of his, and those stupid brown eyes that trick me into talking!

I tell myself to shut up, but more words slip out before I can stop them.

“I haven’t slept in three days,” I say. “Sometimes I’ve gone even longer than that. I can’t get my mind to quiet. It’s like it’s tearing itself apart inside my head.”

“When did this start?” he asks. “Has it been going on this whole year?”

“Year?” I say with a hoarse, slightly hysterical laugh. “It’s been going on for as long as I can remember! It’s just that when we were at the monastery and then during the war, there were so many people and so many things happening. They all drowned it out. But it’s so damn quiet now. It’s just me and all that noise in my brain. I’m going crazy. It’s finally happening.”

“What’s so scary about going somewhere you’ve been to many times before?” he says with a slight smile.

“Fuck off.”

“Sorry. Wrong moment for a joke,” he says. “But listen to me. You’re going to be fine. I’ll make sure nothing is quiet. I’ll pester you until you are filled with so much rage and annoyance it drowns out every thought in your head. I promise. You’re going to be okay.”

I should say something sarcastic but I just nod.

Sylvain tugs me a little closer and I realize in horror that he is going to hug me. I try to resist but I can’t fend him off in time before he throws his arms around me. Exhausted as I am, I know there is no chance of escape.

I stiffen but I’m pretty sure that over the years Sylvain has become immune to this tactic at getting him to stop hugging me. He doesn’t let go and eventually I stop fighting my unavoidable fate and relax.

I rest my face against his shoulder and mumble, “I’ve missed you.”

“What did you say?” he asks.

“Nothing. Get off me.”

He lets go and says, “First on our list of things to do today is take a nap. I think that’s even higher priority than breakfast right now. After sleep and food, we can go for a ride on that trail I like by the river, then maybe spar for a bit, then have a few drinks, eat some supper, play some chess - although, I’ll warn you: I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I bet I can give you a run for your money now. After that more drinks, then back to sleep. I will knock you out with a bat if I have to.”

“Sylvain…”

“What? Does that all sound boring? Because I think it sounds fun. What would you rather do?”

“It sounds fine.”

“Good. Get to work. Sleep.”

Hoping that my body has hit the point of exhaustion where it simply breaks down enough it is forced to rest, I give in and take off my boots and coat.

Sylvain kicks off his boots too and starts unbuckling the straps on his light leather armor when I ask, “What are you doing?”

“Taking a nap. I’m tired.”

“I’m sure Oliver got the guest rooms ready.”

“I’m fine here,” he says, stripping off the rest of his layers until he is only wearing a thin shirt, boxers and socks.

He climbs under the blankets, rolling onto his side facing away from me.

“Get out of my bed,” I tell him.

“No.”

“Why? There’s a perfectly good one in the guest room.”

“I’m not letting you sneak out the window and return to the training hall. You’ll chop your leg off on accident. I’m not good enough at healing magic yet that I can reattach it and then I’ll have to spend the rest of my life waiting around for you to limp after me on a wooden leg. It’s bad enough with you being shorter than me. I don’t want you to slow me down even more.”

I pick up Wolfie and set him down on the bed next to Sylvain. “Scratch him,” I say.

Wolfie stares up at me languidly and I point at Sylvain. “Go on. Attack!”

He curls up on the pillows next to Sylvain’s head and closes his eyes.

“Useless animal,” I mutter.

I take off my sweater and bloodstained pants and slip under the covers, curling up on the edge of the bed as far away from the two of them as possible.

“Goodnight,” Sylvain says.

“It’s morning.”

“Just go to sleep, will you?”

“You say that like it’s easy.”

“It’s a lot easier when you’re not alone.”

“Hmph. Well, you would know.”

“Yeah I would,” he says quietly. “I’ve been sleeping alone for a while now and I haven’t gotten the hang of it yet.”

His words surprise me but there is nothing I want less than to hear him talk about his love life - or the apparent lack of one as of late. 

Closing my eyes, I wait for the noise and mania in my mind to rear its ugly head.


	2. The Lupine Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain and Felix go for a ride through the woods where they played as kids, but in those woods they stumble upon something horrible.

## 2 - THE LUPINE TRAIL

###  **Felix**

I bolt awake out of an anxious dream and look around, trying to steady my disoriented senses.

The room is filled with late afternoon sunlight and Wolfie is perched on the windowsill, basking in its warmth. Beside me, Sylvain is fast asleep. He has shifted unconsciously to lie diagonally across the bed, taking up most of it. I am perched on the edge of the mattress, left with only a sheet since he has stolen all of the blankets.

“You bastard.”

I attempt to yank one back but he clutches it tighter and mumbles something incoherent.

“Why do I put up with you?” I whisper.

I should wake him up and kick him out of my room, but he looks so happy and comfortable. Lying back down, I stare up at the ceiling and wonder how long I was asleep. It had to have been five or six hours at least.

When was the last time I slept for five consecutive hours? What kind of hex did Sylvain cast on me? Is he really getting that good at magic? That’s a disturbing thought.

“Go away, you bedhog,” I say, nudging his shoulder.

He rolls closer, though, and flings his arm around my waist.

I freeze, fighting the instinct to shove him off me because I know it would wake him up. I will just slip out from under it and leave the room.

But my body doesn’t obey my mind and move. Instead I close my eyes and relax. It’s hard to deny how comforting the simple bit of physical contact feels. No one ever gets too close to me and no one touches me. I had forgotten how much I missed it.

There are only servants and soldiers here and I have no friends in the territory. Sylvain has been traveling around the Sreng border. Dimitri and Byleth are up to their eyeballs in the drudgery of running a country and Ingrid’s knightly duties keep her too busy to so much as send a letter. And where the hell is Ashe? Did he really end up moving to Brigid with Petra? I know Annette is a professor now.

I guess we all went our separate ways two years ago.

I have seen a couple people in passing here and there, but for the most part we are all busy with the responsibilities of our houses. The monastery was only a fleeting break from the lives we had to inevitably inherit. I guess I never really did expect the closeness of those friendships to last. 

Even Mercedes, who is more like family to me than a friend, still left Faerghus shortly after the war with Dedue. 

But Sylvain is different. He has been the one constant thing in my life. Even after we were separated for a while during the beginning of the war, we found our way back to each other when we returned to the monastery. 

I thought it would always be that way, that nothing in life was important enough to keep us apart for long. Sylvain has sworn to never get married and at this point, I think it’s safe to assume I won’t either, given the fact I have yet to meet a woman I am attracted to and a man I can stand to be around for more than a night.

But a year is a long time. Maybe it didn’t seem that way to Sylvain, or it wouldn’t to a normal person, but for me it felt like a decade.

I open my eyes to look over at him and just about jump out of my skin to find him awake and staring at me.

“Did you actually sleep or were you just faking it?” he asks, squinting at me suspiciously.

“I slept.”

“For more than an hour?”

“Yes.”

Sylvain smiles and I shove his arm off me. “No thanks to you commandeering the entire bed. If you insist on hovering around me ever again, you’re sleeping on the floor,” I say.

“You could have slept on the floor.”

“It’s my bed!”

“Not anymore. I like it. I’m staying here. You can sleep in the guest room if you want,” he replies.

I get up and put my clothes back on, and after a minute of lying around and yawning, Sylvain does the same.

“You still want to go for that ride?” I ask.

“If you do.”

“Sure.”

We need to do something that doesn’t involve talking. I have proven that I can’t keep my mouth under control and I don’t want to say anything else pathetic.

After a quick breakfast that I suppose at this hour is lunch, we saddle our horses and set off westwards towards the trail. 

It’s a relief to find that some of my strength has returned and I can ride without feeling light-headed. My hands are still shaking a bit as I hold the reins, but my mind is clear and I feel better than I have in a long while.

The Lupine Trail winds through the dense woods along the banks of the river and this time of the spring it lives up to its name. Purple lupine flowers fill the grass and white trilliums are tucked away in the shadows at the bases of trees.

“This is still my favorite place in all of Faerghus,” Sylvain says.

It’s mine too.

“You have plenty of forests in your territory,” I reply.

“But this one I have happy memories of.”

I look around at the woods, bits and pieces of those memories echoing through my head. I have avoided this trail for a while because I always think of them when I am here.

Tiny little Felix chasing after Dimitri chanting, _“Fight me! Come on, coward! Fight me!”_ only to be knocked off his feet in a matter of seconds when Dimitri finally gave in and drew his wooden training sword… 

Ingrid galloping down the trail on horseback yelling at Sylvain for something. _“Hide!”_ he whispered and pushed me into the river, diving in after me. We ducked under the mossy edge of the riverbank and shivered in the icy water until she gave up searching for us… 

Sylvain and I plunking a bunch of pine needles we wove into a circlet on Dimitri’s head and solemnly saying, _“Your crown, my liege.”_ But Dimitri just yanked it off and told us to get lost… 

More recent memories too - Mercedes wandering among the trees, laughing and gathering a bouquet of late-summer daisies… But that one isn’t as happy, I suppose. It had been a good day like every other spent in these woods. It was just that at the end of it she had told me that she was leaving Faerghus. _“I’ll miss you, little brother. Write to me. You know wherever I am, I will always be your friend and I will always love you.”_

“Are there ghosts around here?” Sylvain asks, drawing me from my memories. “Or are you just admiring the scenery?”

“Just staring at nothing,” I answer, nudging my horse to walk a little faster.

Sylvain catches up and rides close beside me, but thankfully he doesn’t ask any more questions or strike up a conversation.

I glance over at him while he is absorbed in looking around at the forest. He looks strong and healthy as ever, but in the sunshine, the scar on his face stands out more. I wasn’t lying to him - he does still look handsome. I think it would take a lot more than a scar to harm his good looks. Even ten more scars wouldn’t matter. He would still have that body.

But the sight of the scar evokes a painful guilt in me. I should have been there to protect him. He’s too stupid and reckless in a fight. He needs someone to have his back.

Maybe I should give up being the duke, pass on the leadership of House Fraldarius to my cousin.

No, that’s impossible. I can’t let down Rodrigue like that. He’d roll over in his grave if I handed the title off to idiot Cousin Marten. 

My horse whinnies nervously and shies to the side a few steps, but I ignore her, too lost in thought.

Sylvain’s sudden gasp of alarm snaps my attention back to the moment and I see him rein in his horse to a halt, staring at a thicket of brush a stone’s throw away.

“What is it?” I ask.

“There’s something there,” he says, jumping down off his horse.

I follow him and draw my sword as we approach. Sylvain leaves his sheathed but I see a flicker of sparks in his hand.

“Stay back,” he says.

“You stay back,” I reply, stepping in front of him and getting down on my knees to crawl into the thicket. 

I only have to shove through the dense brush a few feet before I come across the body. It’s a young woman, naked and lying facedown on the ground

Slipping my sword into its sheath, I move over to make room for Sylvain to crawl in. He swears when he sees the body and shakes his head. “What the hell?”

He picks her up gently and I hold back the brush to allow him to carry her out without the branches tearing at them.

When we are free of the thicket, Sylvain sets her body down on a patch of grass and I take off my coat to cover her. But as he rolls her onto her back, we both freeze.

There is a design of some kind cut into her skin, right above her breasts.

“What is that?” Sylvain says.

I cover her lower body with my coat and Sylvain takes off his scarf, cleaning away the dried blood on her chest.

The girl’s dead body feels so jarringly out of place in these beautiful, almost sacred woods. Somehow it disturbs me more than any of the mutilated corpses I have seen on battlefields.

She can’t be older than nineteen or twenty, with long blonde hair and a face that was likely pretty at one point, but now is too haggard and haunted to be so anymore.

“What the fuck?” Sylvain whispers and I turn my attention back to her wound. 

Dread steals my breath away as I realize that the design carved into her skin is the shield dragon crest of House Fraldarius.

“We need to get out of here,” Sylvain says, buttoning my coat up around her body and covering her face with the scarf. He picks her up and straps her to his saddle, then looks back at me. But I am still on my knees, my bleary mind reeling to process what I just saw and why it could have happened.

Sylvain pulls me to my feet and drags me over to my horse. He helps me into the saddle but lingers for a moment with his hand on my leg.

“Fee? You alright?” he asks.

I can hear the unspoken rest of his thought plain as day because I am asking myself the same thing.

Why are you acting like this is the first dead body you have ever seen?

“I’m fine,” I say automatically. “Let’s go.”


	3. The Blinded Corpse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix finally gets some goddamn sleep thanks to Sylvain but soon after they both wake up from a nap they find grim news awaiting them: another body has been found and it isn't a pretty sight.

## 3 - THE BLINDED CORPSE

###  **Sylvain**

Felix opens the door to his room and walks in wearily. There is a stiff, numb look about him that frightens me. I have seen Felix in every mood, mental state and emotion, but I have never seen him look so empty. He is always sharp. Too sharp, really.

“What’s the plan?” I ask.

“The captain of my guard is lending his men to help search the woods with the police. The chief inspector is scouring the city.”

“We need to know what killed her. It wasn’t the knife. But it didn’t look like magic either. Is a physician examining the body?”

“Thena,” he says.

“What?”

“That was her name apparently. Thena. She’s the wife of a tailor in the town nearby. She has no connection to me, no enemies, nothing.”

He is still standing by the door, like he can’t remember why he even came in here.

“We’ll figure out why this happened. While they look for any signs of the murderer, we can start making a list of people who have a grudge against House Fraldarius and start investigating them. I’ll go speak with-”

“No,” he says, finally looking at me. “You’re going home.”

“What? Why?”

“An innocent girl just turned up with my crest carved into her! And I brought her body in from the woods. Inspector Agust is trying to hide it, but I’m not an idiot. I know I am a suspect. And even if I’m not, people will talk. I’ve been acting strange lately. I’m known for being a violent person. I don’t…” He rubs his forehead with a wince. “I don’t want any shadow cast on your reputation. Go before people talk.”

Seiros damn me, I know it’s the wrong moment, but I can’t help but laugh. “It feels like old times, having you lecture me about my reputation.”

“Love scandals are one thing. Murder scandals are another. Go.”

He sits down on the bed and hangs his head in his hands, his fingers gripping at the roots of his hair.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, sitting down next to him and putting my hand on his shoulder. To my surprise, he doesn’t shrug it off or move away. 

“Stubborn ass,” he murmurs.

“The only person as stubborn as you in all of Fódlan,” I say. “You really think you can get rid of me?”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“I’m always an idiot! I can’t help it.”

Does he really think I am just going to ride off and leave him alone? Why is he even trying to convince me to?

“I promised to annoy you and talk to you and cause you all kinds of grief. I’m a man of my word. I’m not breaking my promise,” I tell him.

“When have you ever been a man of your word?” he says.

“When it’s a promise I made to you.”

Felix doesn’t look up or stop anxiously clutching his hair, so I grab his hands and yank them away from his head.

“Don’t rip it out. It’s your best feature,” I tell him.

“No it’s not,” he mumbles.

“Oh yeah? What is then?”

He is silent for a long moment then he says quietly, “My sunny disposition.”

I laugh but even though he doesn’t join in or so much as even smile, his words comfort my worry a little.

Maybe the sharp, motivated Felix everyone else knows is missing right now. But my Felix is still there, and as long as he is still my Felix, I know he will be everyone else’s Felix again soon. I just need to get him back on his feet somehow.

I get up and fetch a bottle of wine, pouring a little into two glasses. I return and hold one out to him but he shakes his head.

“I have to stay alert.”

“You aren’t very alert to begin with. You might as well have a drink. I don’t know about you, but I could certainly use one.”

“I don’t want any,” he insists.

“I brought you the finest bottle of wine in the whole damn country! You know how much this costs? Don’t be an ungrateful wretch! At least try it.”

I shove the glass at him and with a sigh of annoyance, he takes it. 

I raise my glass and drain the whole thing, watching as Felix takes a sip. A second later the glass drops from his hand and I catch it before it can hit the ground. 

Felix slumps back onto the bed unconscious and I set down the bottle and glasses on the nightstand.

“We have a fight ahead of us and I’m not letting you go into battle on the verge of collapse. Get some sleep so we can get to work,” I say, even though he can’t hear me.

I pull his boots off of him and his coat, then pick him up and lay him against the pillows. He rolls onto his side, snoring softly, and I smile. I brush the hair out of his eyes and tuck it behind his ear.

“Don’t kill me when you wake up. I know how much you hate sleep potion but it’s for your own good, buddy.”

He is definitely going to kill me when he wakes up.

I lie down next to him and close my eyes, exhaling a long breath. In the morning, we need to act, but for now it is time to think. And since I am the brains of this operation, I had better get started on that.

I begin making a mental list of questions that need to be answered and figuring out the best way to prioritize them, but I get distracted after a while by the thought that has been running through my head ever since I arrived this morning and saw Felix struggling in the training grounds, looking half-alive and pale as a ghost.

I should have come back sooner.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, rolling onto my side to face him. “You’re right - I’m not always a man of my word. I haven’t stuck by that old promise of ours lately. I realize now that I should have. It’s no coincidence that the first time we are apart for more than a few months, you go insane and I nearly get my face sliced off.”

* * *

“You son of a bitch!”

Felix’s roar jerks me awake and I try to scramble off the bed but he is on top of me before I can flee, pinning me down, hands on my throat.

“You drugged me!” he says.

“Don’t kill me,” I choke. “Please. Have mercy.”

When he doesn’t stop, I bring sparks to my hand with a mild lightning spell and shock him. He swears and lets go of my neck but he doesn’t get off of me.

“Do you feel better?” I ask.

He scowls and looks away.

“Do you feel more rested?” 

“Yes,” he says resentfully.

“You’re welcome then.”

Felix realizes that he is still straddling me and he climbs off with a startled look.

I rub my sore neck and glare at him. “While you were snoozing, I was hard at work.” I pick up a sheet of paper off the nightstand and hand it to him.

“What is this?” he asks.

“A list of anyone who might bear a grudge against you. I sorted it geographically and then prioritized the lists within each region by threat level.”

He studies the list and says, ”There are twenty-five names on here!”

“Twenty-seven actually.”

“Wait,” he says, looking at it closer. “Why the fuck is your name on here?”

“So many reasons,” I reply. 

“Name one.”

“Harpstring Moon 1178.”

“That was not my fault.”

“Someone stole that ceremonial sword from the royal armory and it wasn’t me!”

“I didn’t steal it. I just wanted to swing it around a bit and see if it was as good a weapon as everyone said. I was going to put it back.”

“Except you broke it!”

“It’s not my fault it was a fragile old piece of shit.”

“It was a royal heirloom!”

“It was a piece of shit.”

“I couldn’t care less if it was. But why was I the one who got yelled at for it? You could have fessed up!”

“You can get away with shenanigans like that, but I can’t. Dimitri would have killed me.”

“Fine. Blue Sea Moon 1180.”

A faint smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “Alright. That one I’ll give you.”

“You’d better. I almost got expelled, not to mention Hilda never spoke to me again.”

“Her loss.”

“Anyways,” I say, grabbing the list from him and crossing my name off. “Let’s get back to the matter at hand.” I turn the page over and hand it back to him. “On the other side, using the same organizational system, is a list of people with a grudge against House Fraldarius as a whole. There are sixteen names on this list.”

He sobers up and reads the list solemnly. “I think someone from the war would have sought revenge sooner and they would do it more directly. They would target someone I care about. I think it is likely this murderer hates House Fraldarius, not specifically me.”

“Well, you look that over for a while. I’m going to go find us breakfast. We have a long day ahead of us,” I say, climbing out of bed and getting dressed.

Felix just nods, his attention focused on the list. He looks like himself again, for the most part. His energy is back, his sharp focus and his determined frown.

I breathe a sigh of relief and leave to go find Oliver.

When I return a while later carrying a tray heaped with food and coffee, I find him jotting notes in the margin of the page and underlining and crossing out names.

“I’ve added five names,” he says without looking up from the page.

“You were supposed to narrow them down.”

“There are a lot of people who hate me apparently. I have crossed out quite a few, though. I think I have it narrowed down to about fifteen.”

“That’s a start. Now come over here,” I say, setting the tray down on the table before I spill anything.

He wanders over, still absorbed in his thoughts, and sits down, absently grabbing a biscuit and taking a bite.

I set a cup of coffee in front of him and he mutters, “Thanks.”

“She was poisoned,” I tell him. “The physician delivered the report while I was talking to Oliver. Thena died by poison. It seems that she was traveling to visit family and disappeared on the road. No one was sure how long she was missing, but the physician said it looked like she hadn’t eaten in four days and there were signs of strain on her body like she had been through intense amounts of stress or sleep deprivation.”

“What?” Felix looks up at me questioningly. “Four days?”

“Yeah. It doesn’t make any sense to me either. If someone killed her to send a message of some kind, why keep her prisoner? Why starve her or intimidate her or keep her awake? That speaks to cruelty more than just ruthlessness. It may be that the murderer had personal reasons to target her and wasn’t just trying to fuck with House Fraldarius.”

“Why the crest then?”

“To throw us off the trail, point us in the wrong direction?” I wonder.

“I’m more concerned about the woods. Why leave her there? She was too visible for it to have been a hiding place and yet if he wanted her to be found, that wasn’t a good place for it either. Those riding trails are for my personal use. I would be the only one to find her other than a forester maybe. And what is stranger still is that I haven’t been down that trail in a long time.”

“Why not?” I ask.

He hesitates a moment then answers, “It doesn’t feel right… alone.”

“When’s the last time you rode down it?”

“Last time you were here.”

“Oh shit,” I whisper. “Get a new sheet of paper. We need to add my enemies to the list now too. And there are a lot more than twenty-seven.”

He gets up to grab one and I take a long drink of my coffee.

“I’m so sorry,” I say as he sits back down. “It seems that I might have brought danger with me.”

Felix glances at me with that intense look I know so well. “If they did they will regret it,” he says. “It’s a mistake to threaten you when I’m around. I will make them pay for what they’ve done and whatever it is that they intend to do.”

I know it’s a grave moment, but I smile anyways.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks.

“I’m glad to see you act like yourself again.”

Felix nods and says quietly, “It’s good to feel like myself again. But Sylvain…”

“What?”

“Never drug me again. I don’t care how much I need sleep.”

“It’s made a world of difference. You have your energy back,” I say.

“I know. But just, don’t do it, alright?”

I study his dark expression and the way he is staring down at his coffee cup. It is more than the usual awkward way he has of avoiding eye contact. Something is truly wrong.

“Why do they bother you so much? I find a bit of sleeping potion to be a lifesaver when I’m too worked up to rest,” I say.

“You remember that time I took some after our battle at Ailell?” 

“You said it gave you nightmares. But that was the night of a battle. Does it still do that?”

He nods stiffly.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I thought it would help.”

“It did,” he says. “Just don’t do it again.”

A knock on the door makes Felix jump to his feet.

“Yes?” he asks, yanking the door open. 

“A message from Inspector Agust,” a page says.

“Thank you,” Felix replies, closing the door. He opens the note and swears as he reads it.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Get your spear. We have to go.”

He hastily tugs on his boots and straps on his belt and sword sheathe, then runs out of the room.

“Wait!” I grab my spear, sling its strap across my back and chase after him. “What happened?” I ask when I catch up.

“They found another body.”

“Where?”

“In the woods by the trail.”

“What? I thought your guards were patrolling it!”

Felix swears again. “We wasted time!”

“We had no way of guessing he would strike again so soon.”

“It doesn’t matter!” he snaps. “I was sleeping and eating and yammering on with you while another innocent person was getting murdered!”

“Felix-”

“I’m not sleeping until we catch this bastard!”

Our horses are saddled and waiting for us and Felix and I ride hard for the Lupine Trail. But as soon as we reach the trailhead on the edge of the woods we are met with a group of soldiers and police officers standing in a circle around the crime scene.

Inspector Agust doesn’t greet Felix with a bow or so much as a nod of deference. All he says is, “Come see this.”

We dismount and as walk past the soldiers, I glance at their expressions. It is not their horror that unsettles me, for I have seen enough violence and bloodshed it would take quite a lot to shock me. It is their confusion. 

“What the hell?” Felix whispers.

There are three bodies lying on the ground. Two are Fraldarius soldiers, weapons drawn and blood staining their bodies from the stab wounds of a swordfight. Ten or fifteen feet away, at the base of a tree, lies the body of a young man, naked like the girl had been. But this time instead of his skin being cut, he has been blinded.

The mess of blood in his eye sockets is enough to make my stomach turn, even if it doesn’t disturb me to the point it does the police officers. As I look away from the horrible sight, I realize that above his head, carved into the bark of the tree trunk, is the Fraldarius crest.

I glance at Felix and see his jaw clenched and a furious light in his eyes.

“When we found the boy, he was lying facedown, with his arm out. But he didn’t carve the crest,” Agust says.

Felix nods numbly. “When did you find him?”

“Just now. One of my men came back from patrol out of his mind, talking nonsense about ghosts and monsters. We had to lock him up in the infirmary. Something happened to make them lose their minds and turn on each other. Harriet and Miles here killed each other, or maybe Dalan did. We won’t know until he comes back to reality.”

“But they didn’t kill the boy?” I ask.

“They couldn’t have. There are no wounds on his body. It must be poison again,” Agust answers. “But the boy hasn’t been dead long. Not much longer than Harriet and Miles, it looks.”

“There have to be signs of the killer,” Felix says. “He can’t just walk around here invisible!”

“We have swept the area and haven’t caught anyone. As for the crime scene, it was too trodden on by their fight to be able to see anything out of the ordinary. The only thing that is clear is the carving.”

Felix walks over and kneels down beside the young man. I join him, feeling ill, but knowing that we need to examine the body.

“Agust is right. He didn’t bleed to death,” he says. “But look at his hand.”

He picks it up carefully and I notice the blood on his fingers.

“He touched his eyes,” Felix says quietly.

I have to fight back the urge to gag at the thought. “He was blinded before he died.”

“This isn’t just someone with a grudge trying to rile you,” I say. “This is sick.”

Felix stands up and reaches down to pull me to my feet. 

We walk back over to the inspector who says, “We’ll take the bodies back and find out who the boy is. And we will set up guards around the forest.”

Felix nods.

“Lord Fraldarius,” Agust adds, “I’m going to need you to come to my office and answer some questions.” He looks at me. “You too, Margrave Gautier.”

“Of course. We will do everything we can to help,” I answer.

“I want to search the forest first myself,” Felix says. “I will meet you at your office in an hour, Inspector.”

“Very well. I will have some of the soldiers to accompany you.”

“We need to be covering as much ground as possible. I would rather groups be sent out in every direction possible. I don’t need guards. I can protect myself.”

“My lord-”

“I’ll see you in an hour,” Felix says, returning to his horse and climbing into the saddle.

I nod at the inspector and follow Felix. Agust watches us leave warily, and I expect him to send people after us. 

He must agree that our resources are too limited to waste soldiers chasing after Felix. And he doesn’t have the power to challenge him without enough evidence to cause reasonable suspicion. Thank Seiros we have an alibi for this murder. We will get nowhere in this investigation with soldiers and police officers tailing us constantly.

Felix spurs his horse into a gallop, charging into the woods and I ride after him. Once we are a ways away from the scene of the murder, he slows down to a walk and I steer my horse to ride close beside him.

I should speak to him and start trying to analyze the situation, but I can’t shake off the feeling of dread clouding my wits. Taking a deep breath, I try to clear my mind and focus, knowing that now more than ever I need to be alert. But I can’t get the sight of the blinded eyes out of my head.

“Sylvain,” Felix says. “Sylvain.”

I stir from my daze and look over at him.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Are you?”

He tries to reply but can’t seem to find the words.

“This isn’t a battlefield,” I say. “I’ve seen a lot worse, but it’s different when it’s a fight, isn’t it? This sick kind of thing happening in cold blood…”

Felix nods. “I know.”


	4. Lost Innocence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix's intuition tells him to investigate a hidden part of the forest. He and Sylvain set off on their own to find it but in it they are thrown into a strange nightmare.

## 4 - LOST INNOCENCE

###  **Felix**

“Where are you going?” Sylvain asks after we have been riding for a quarter of an hour.

“No one saw someone enter or leave the woods,” I say. “I don’t think he did.”

“You think he is still here?”

I nod.

“There are miles of these trails. How are we going to find him?”

“I have a hunch,” I answer.

I realize that Sylvain is waiting for me to explain so I add, “You remember the first time you killed someone?”

He is silent for a long moment then answers, “No. I know it was the Red Canyon but it’s been so long I can’t remember it exactly.”

“I remember,” I tell him. “I remember that it was nothing like I thought it would be when I trained to fight. It was… messy. My sword wouldn’t cut cleanly through him. It took more effort than I thought.”

Sylvain looks at me worriedly. “Why do you bring it up?”

“Because I think this person has killed before. Poisoning someone is easy. Even cutting the crest into the girl he could have done after she was dead and it wouldn’t have been as bad. But the boy’s eyes… It was like a surgeon removed them. It was bloody, but it was precise. It wasn’t done by someone carving up human flesh for the first time. No one escalates from poison to torture so swiftly and neatly. If it was his first time, they would have been more mangled. No matter who you are, no one has steady hands doing a thing like that until they are desensitized to it.”

“You think we are going to find more bodies in the woods?”

“I have a horrible feeling we might have already.”

“When?”

“Seven years ago. Don’t you remember?” I ask.

Sylvain swears and says, “That was a long time ago. And we agreed it was just the alcohol messing with us.”

“Mercedes was sober.”

“Mercedes has a very vivid imagination. We both told her it was nothing.”

“She’s empathetic,” I say. “She feels things keenly. She said something was wrong with the place. I might not have trusted her at the time but now I know her better and I do. She has the ability to sense and understand things that other people can’t.”

“You think it was the killer that spooked her?” he asks.

“No. She wasn’t scared. She was sad. She said the place was full of pain.”

“Do you think you can find your way back to that spot? It was pretty deep in the woods. We only ended up there because we were drunk and lost.”

“I can find it.”

“How?”

I hesitate, wondering if Sylvain will misconstrue this. But to hell with it. Let Sylvain think whatever he wants.

“I went back there with her. She came and stayed with me for a month after the war, before she left Faerghus. We rode through these woods a lot. One day she asked if we could find that place. I didn’t want to cause her pain again so I said no, but after she left I tracked it down. I can’t explain it, but I felt it too. Something was wrong with it. My horse wouldn’t go near it.”

Thankfully the moment is too grave for Sylvain to comment on Mercedes staying here for so long a visit.

“You’ve never been superstitious before, Felix.”

“I’m not superstitious!” I snap.

“You sound superstitious.”

“Do you have any better ideas?” 

“No,” he admits. “Let’s go.”

We ride together in silence and I study the trail carefully, looking for the point where we diverge from it and head into the deeper and more densely wooded area of the forest.

In the morning sunlight, it looks so peaceful. It is still the forest of our childhood, filled with flowers and birdsong and breeze. But I guess, much like ours, its innocence has been broken now. Maybe it always was and we were too young and carefree to see it.

When we come to the right bend in the trail, I veer off of it and head northwards. Our horses have to tread carefully as they weave through the thick tangle of trees and step over brush and fallen logs. Pushing pine boughs out of our faces, we make our way through it as best we can until we are far enough into the woods that the sunlight struggles to filter through the foliage and the narrow, winding game trails are cast mainly in shadow.

I see the rotted trunk of an old cedar tree that I had kept as a landmark in my memory and dismount, tying the reins to a tree branch. Sylvain does the same and we both draw our weapons as we venture towards a small circular clearing. 

We walk silently like hunters, watching and listening vigilantly. But there is neither sight or sound of anyone near. After a moment the silence that should be reassuring hangs heavily over me and I realize what is wrong with it. The birdsong has ceased. It is too quiet.

My skin shivers with the unsettling feeling and I tell myself to get it together. Sylvain is right - I am not a superstitious man. I should not let myself begin to be so now, even if I do believe there might have been something to Mercedes’s feeling.

Sylvain holds out his arm to stop me before I set foot in the clearing. Shaking his head, he mouths the word _‘wait.’_

I scan our surroundings, but aside from the silence, there is nothing amiss. Even if someone were to find us, Sylvain and I can handle any fight. I wouldn’t tell him this in a hundred years, but he is nearly as strong as me. We have nothing to fear when we are together.

“I’ll circle the clearing and keep watch while you look around,” he whispers in my ear.

Be careful. 

What a stupid thing to say. I keep the warning to myself and step out of the trees and into the sunlight. 

When Mercedes and Sylvain and I had first come across this clearing when we were teenagers, we hadn’t searched it. Mercedes had gone all pale and said those uncanny things about the place and Sylvain and I had taken her back to the house immediately lest she worry herself and us any more.

And when I returned last year it had taken me long enough to find the spot that it had been nearly dark. I should have investigated it to reassure myself there was nothing to Mercedes’s superstition but when my horse bolted, I had to chase after it and leave the clearing behind. Whenever I thought about returning, I had brushed it off as pointless. But I have to admit, a small foolish part of me just wanted to avoid it, to keep these woods a place of peace and not tarnish them with any darkness.

Now I wish I had so I could have banished the mystery of it from my mind.

It unnerves me to keep my eyes on the ground and distract my attention from our surroundings, but I make myself examine the dirt and grass, looking for signs of someone having been here before.

Pine needles and bits of scrub brush cover the ground, but after searching for ten minutes or so, I find something that looks slightly out of place. It is a single white trillium flower.

Trilliums only grow in the shadows of the trees. They aren’t made for sunlight.

I kneel down and pluck it, finding that it is not connected to a plant. Its stem is just half-buried in the dirt. Jumping to my feet, I continue searching until I find several more placed here and there throughout the clearing. They are all fresh enough that at a glance you would think they were simply growing here. But trilliums don’t last long once picked.

Dread steals over me and I look for Sylvain, but I can’t see any movement and the shadows among the trees are too dark to see him if he is hiding.

Damn it! Where is he?

“Sylvain,” I say as loudly as I dare. 

When he doesn’t respond, I run towards the trees. 

“Sylvain!”

My eyes adjust to the dim light and I skirt the clearing, clutching my sword, all my senses strained for signs of a threat.

I catch a glimpse of red half-hidden by the underbrush and my heart leaps into my throat. When I reach him, I find him lying on his back, alive but unconscious. His shirt has been torn and the crest has been sliced in bleeding lines across his chest.

I look around frantically but there is only the stillness and silence of the forest. For a moment, I consider searching for the killer. But fear for Sylvain overcomes my anger and I drop down next to him, lifting him up and tying my scarf across his chest.

But just as I start carrying him away from the clearing, I feel a presence behind me and hear the quiet sound of footsteps. With Sylvain in my arms, I can’t react fast enough to turn around and attack before a hand reaches out and clamps a rag over my mouth.

I choke on the foul-tasting cloth and collapse. I try to turn around and see the attacker but my head is reeling and I can barely think or breathe.

I hear the steps retreat and when I finally manage to move and sit up, he is gone.

My head still feels clouded and my body is shaking. I haul myself to my feet but I don’t have the strength to lift Sylvain again. We have to get out of here, though. Now.

I stagger towards where we left our horses but I only have to walk a few feet before I see that they are gone. Something must have made them flee.

Returning to Sylvain, I force myself to think. If we can’t run, we have to hold our ground and we can’t do so in the dense forest where there is no visibility. Our only option is to go into the clearing where we can see our attacker.

Somehow I manage to half-carry, half-drag Sylvain out of the trees. But by the time I reach the center of the clearing, what strength I had is gone and I drop down to the ground beside him, struggling to stay conscious.

Drawing my sword again, I set it next to me on the grass. Carefully, I untie the scarf that has now become soaked with his blood.

“Come on. Wake up,” I say and slap his face. But he doesn’t stir. “Come on!”

My breathing is coming in panicked, ragged gasps and I try to calm it and focus. I have cast healing spells before. I can do this. Think! Think, Felix. How does it work? Remember!

Why didn’t I pay more attention in magic class? Byleth told me over and over again that not every problem can be solved with a sword and yet I never listened to her.

Cursing myself silently, I place my palm on Sylvain’s chest and turn my attention inwards, reaching out for the energy that healing magic uses and channeling it tenuously through my hands. A tiny bit of light comes to my hands and part of the cut starts to close.

The magic makes me even more light-headed, but I keep trying the spell until most of it is healed and the cuts have fused back together, leaving behind only the mess of blood.

I breathe a sigh of relief and move my hands away. But my vision spins a bit and a painful jolt of fear strikes through me. I close my eyes for a second to steady myself and when I open them, the crest is back, carved once again into Sylvain’s chest.

Grabbing my sword, I look around the clearing but there is no one here. 

How? How could he have…?

I growl a curse and start to heal the wound again but the more I try, the more it bleeds, the cuts deepening of their own accord until Sylvain’s body is soaked in blood and my hands are shaking too violently to hold the spell.

Clouds pass across the sun, cloaking the clearing in darkness, and a strange, pounding noise fills the silence. Jumping to my feet, I search for its source. After a moment, I realize it is the sound of my own heartbeat.

It grows louder, drowning out everything else. A flicker of movement catches my eye and I stagger towards it, but I trip over something and fall. I almost pass out when I hit the ground and when I open my eyes, I find myself staring at one of the trillium flowers an inch away from my face.

The ground trembles beneath me and begins to sink like shifting sand, swallowing me down into the cold darkness of the earth. I cry out and try to fight my way out, but the dirt closes in around my body, trapping me in a coffin-like chasm beneath its surface.

The sickening smell of rotting flesh fills my senses, then I feel hands close around my head and I freeze in terror. One reaches around and its icy, skeletal fingers run across my face.

I scream but the sound is muffled by the dirt and barely makes a sound. As the hands close around my throat, I thrash out of their grip, clawing frantically at the dirt until I break through to the surface and fight my way out of the grave.

A voice calls to me from faraway but I can’t tell whose it is, nor hear what they are saying.

The clouds pass and harsh sunlight burns across the sky, blinding my eyes. A figure looms over me and I scramble back to where I dropped my sword. I try to stand up but my body is too weak and when the figure appears again, I slash my sword clumsily at it and yell. 

The effort of overwhelms me and when I try to swing at it again, I black out.


	5. The Eve of Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix & Sylvain escape from the forest and plan their next move.

## 5 - THE EVE OF BATTLE

###  **Sylvain**

My arms are shaking, but I pick Felix back up and heft him over my shoulder, forcing myself to keep going. We have to get as far away from that place as we can before dark. I’m just not sure I am going in the right direction.

But I only make it another few furlongs before I have to set him down and catch my breath.

“Come on, buddy. I need you to wake up,” I say. “But when you do, don’t try to kill me again, alright?”

It is hard to tell in the dim forest, but I think the light is fading towards dusk. How long were both of us out?

I sit down next to Felix, gasping for breath. I can’t carry him further. My body feels like all the life has been wrung out of it. Drawing on what strength I have left, I cast the simple lightning spell I know and sparks flicker in my hands.

"Oh goddess, Felix, please be yourself when you wake up. Please don’t attack me. I can’t fight you right now," I whisper. 

I take a deep breath and touch his chest with the lightning. His body seizes up then falls limp again.

Once more I cast the spell and this time he jerks awake, scrambling up and looking around frantically.

“Felix. It’s just me. I had to wake you up.”

His eyes focus on me and I am relieved to see that the wild, dissociated look he had in the clearing is gone.

“Sylvain?” he says. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, just exhausted. I’ve carried you as far as I can but I don’t know where we are.”

He rubs his forehead and winces. “What the fuck happened to us?”

“I don’t know. I was attacked from behind and then when I came to, you were out of your mind.”

“I was…” He trails off, then his eyes widen with panic. Grabbing my coat, he tugs it aside and stares at my chest. “Thank Seiros,” he says. “I didn’t know if I healed it.”

I glance down at the scars. “It doesn’t look pretty, does it? But at least I’m not bleeding that much anymore.”

“I’ll study healing magic better,” he says. “This won’t happen again. Next time you’re hurt I will heal it properly.”

He traces the half-closed scars with his fingertips, a furious expression on his face. 

I grab his hand and say, “Stop. We need to focus on getting out of here. Do you know the way back?”

“I’m not sure,” he answers, trying to stand up. But he stumbles and collapses back on the ground, cursing in frustration. “What happened to me?”

“Whatever happened to those soldiers.”

“Did I attack you?”

“You just swung your sword a bit. It was nothing. You weren’t yourself. I think it was some kind of drug or hex.”

His expression grows dark. “I attacked you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

“How could I have-?”

“Fee, stop. It was only-”

“Go home,” he snaps suddenly.

“Not this again.”

“I said go home!”

“Shut up. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Go home, you idiot!”

I flinch at his words. Even for Felix, his tone is pretty harsh.

“Fuck off,” I reply, grabbing the collar of his shirt and looking him in the eyes. “How could you possibly think I would leave you alone in all this?”

He stares back at me fiercely, then I see fear creep into his expression. “You know you can’t win a fight against me. If that happens again and I kill you or hurt you… I can’t live with that. So once we make it out of here, go.”

“First we have to get out of this damn forest. Let’s worry about that before we start fighting about anything else.”

I haul myself up to my feet and reach down to help him up. He still looks so distraught, I can’t help it - I grab him in a hug and hold onto him tightly. “You scare me sometimes,” I say. “A lot of the time. But without a shadow of a doubt, I trust you. Trust yourself.”

“I used to,” he murmurs. “But now, I just don’t know.”

He pulls out of my arms and walks away, still unsteady on his feet. I catch up to him and take his hand.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“I’m not. I’m about ready to pass out. That drug took a toll on me and hauling you around for hours didn’t improve my condition.”

“Fine,” he says.

“Do you know which way to go?” I ask.

“No. But any direction away from that place is good.”

We walk as fast as we can, keeping hold of each other to steady ourselves as we stumble through patches of brush and tangles of evergreen boughs. 

As dusk deepens, what light filters in through the leaves wanes and soon all we have is scattered pieces of moonlight.

“Let’s stop,” I say, sitting down and panting for breath.

Felix sits next to me, his body slumped and exhausted but his eyes warily scanning our surroundings. I sag against him, resting my head on his shoulder, and he nudges me.

“Get off me,” he mumbles.

“I am in distress,” I reply. “Deal with it.”

Begrudgingly, he relaxes and lets me lean on him. And after a while, he sighs and scoots a little closer, putting his arms around me.

I close my eyes, his closeness comforting my troubled spirit. Sometimes I miss the Felix I knew before Duscur - the one who laughed freely and was never too tense or awkward to show affection. But I have learned to read the subtle ways he expresses affection now, the love behind his sharp words and the loyalty he shows through his courage. Even so, I am always selfishly relieved when he lets me break through his walls enough to be close to him.

“We need to keep going,” he says.

“I know. Five more minutes.”

“How are going to explain what we found to the inspector?”

“What did we find?” I ask.

“The place where he buried the bodies of everyone he killed before.”

“How do you know?”

“I know,” he says.

“You really think he has been murdering people all these years? Seven years is a long time to keep that up without being caught.”

“He’s clever. But for whatever reason, he has a personal vendetta against you and I. We were vulnerable back there. He could have killed us, but he didn’t. Why do you think that is?”

“He isn’t done with whatever game he’s playing at,” I guess.

“Maybe his anger will make him slip up. Emotions always get in the way of fighting.”

“I think it’s safe to assume he isn’t anyone on your list.”

“Maybe. But you never know people’s real nature do you?”

What a disturbing thought. I know he is not wrong, but still… 

I stand up and hold out my hand. Felix takes it and we resume our trek through the forest.

I am not sure how long we wander in the woods, for it is impossible to gauge the passage of time in the heavy darkness and with the weight of exhaustion and anxiety hanging over our minds. But eventually we come to the edge of the trees and find ourselves near the river again, under the open sky.

The familiar path and open air lends strength to our hearts and we turn in the direction of home, walking as fast as our tired legs will take us.

As we grow close to the edge of the forest, I ask, “What are you going to tell the inspector?”

“I don’t know. But in the morning, I’m going back.”

“What? Are you insane?”

Felix nods, that look of heedless determination on his face I know all too well. “I likely am,” he says. “But I’m going back. If I send the police back there they will wind up dead. And I can’t risk taking you with me. If I go alone, I can either prove the bodies are there or I can confront the murderer.”

“You’re not going alone.”

“There is no discussing this, Sylvain. You can’t come.”

“Bold of you to assume you can stop me,” I reply.

He grabs my hand and tugs me around to face him. “You’re a liability to me. I could have chased him there in the forest but I let him go because I wanted to protect you. What happened back there - it happened because you were with me. You weaken me. If I’m to kill this bastard, I can’t have you hindering me.”

“Hindering you? I hauled your unconscious ass out of that clearing!”

“I was only unconscious because he drugged me and he wouldn’t have had a chance to if I hadn’t been protecting you!”

“So what happened is my fault?” I ask. 

“Yes!” He sighs and looks away from me. “No, no it wasn’t. I’m the one who was stupid enough to turn my back on him. But that’s just it. I can’t…”

I wait for him to finish his thought and after a minute he adds, “If I’m forced to choose between protecting you and catching him, I’ll always choose you. It galls me to have to make that stupid, irrational choice. The longer he’s alive the more people he will kill. That’s on my head now. So if you-”

“If I what?” I ask.

“If you love me, don’t put me in that situation. I can’t afford to be selfish again.”

He says the word _love_ so quietly I barely hear him.

“If I love you, I’ll be there to have your back. I know he got the drop on me this time, but now I know what we are up against and it won’t happen again.”

“Lord Fraldarius!” a voice shouts, followed by the sound of galloping hooves.

I grab my spear and Felix puts his hand on the hilt of his sword. 

A moment later a Fraldarius guard appears, riding towards us.

“We’ve been searching the trails for you!” the soldier says. “Are you injured, my lord?”

“I’m fine,” Felix says. “What have your patrols found?”

“We haven’t encountered anyone in the forest,” he answers. “Inspector Agust sent a score of us out to find you. What happened to you?”

“We happened upon the murderer but got lost in the woods chasing after him,” Felix says. “Where is Inspector Agust? I must speak with him.

“He is in his office, managing the patrols and reports. Here, my lord. Take my horse. I will return on foot.”

“Thank you, soldier. But there is danger here and it is unsafe to travel on foot. Margrave Gautier and I will continue on our own. You and your comrades should return to the city. It is not wise to be in these woods after dark and I don’t think you will find the killer without the aid of daylight.”

The soldier dismounts and holds out the reins. He bows and says, “With all due respect, my lord, you look weary from your chase. It is not my place to disagree with you, but I feel nonetheless it is my duty to insist you take my horse. I will walk beside you.”

“Don’t be stubborn,” I tell Felix, dragging him over to the horse. I pull myself up into the saddle and hold out my hand. Felix swats it away and climbs up behind me.

“Thank you, soldier,” I say and he gives me a short bow.

I keep our horse at a slow pace so the soldier can walk along beside us. It is a relief to be off my feet but the closer we get to home, the more my mind races with worried thoughts.

Agust already has his suspicions about Felix. Finding the murderer immediately when no one else had a clue as to where he was then the two of us - strong war heroes both - getting bested by him… It is strange enough to warrant inquiry. If nothing else, returning with our tails between our legs does not look good. 

With Felix’s erraticism of late and now his failure to defeat the murderer piling up bodies of his innocent civilians around him, it will damage his people’s respect in him. We have to catch this bastard and quickly. 

  
  


###  **Felix**

It is past midnight by the time we return from speaking with the inspector and when I go to my room after a quick bath and bite of supper, I find Sylvain asleep in my bed.

I want to wake him up and tell him to get the hell out, but when I look at the bandage wrapped across the half-healed scars on his chest, my guilt makes me give in and leave him be.

After grabbing an extra blanket for myself in preparation for when he inevitably steals all the rest of the covers, I slip into bed beside him.

Of all the idiots in all of Fódlan, what did I do to get saddled with him?

But who is the bigger idiot - him for being the aggravating, careless man he is or me for stupidly choosing him to be the person I would love most in this world?

Probably me.

Trying to set aside my pointless thoughts, I close my eyes and wait for the sleep I desperately need. To my relief, the insomnia does not strike tonight.

But soon after I drift off, I am awakened by Sylvain shaking me.

“Felix!”

I sit up, gasping for breath.

“I’m sorry, but you were having a nightmare,” he says.

I don’t reply, too caught up in the phantom pain of the grave dirt suffocating me and the shivering terror of the skeleton’s hands.

I cough and choke, trying to banish the sensations from my mind. But they linger and no matter how many times I tell myself they weren’t real, they do not relent.

“Listen to me, Fee. You’re safe in here. It’s just a dream.”

“I know!” I hang my head, focusing intently on stilling my panicked breathing. After a few minutes, I say, “Thank you for waking me.”

Sylvain puts his arm around my shoulders and says, “Tell me what you saw.”

I push him away and say, “Stop!”

“Stop what.”

“Treating me like I’m weak. I don’t need you to comfort me. I’m fine. Just because I’m shaken up doesn’t mean I’m afraid. Don’t treat me like I’m some pitiful wounded dog.”

“You think physical affection is a sign of pity? Really?”

“Why else would you patronize me with it?” I ask.

“It’s not patronizing! It’s just how normal people show love,” he says.

Normal. The word stings and I get out of bed and grab my blanket. “You win. I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

“Wait, Felix, I-”

But I leave before he can finish his sentence.

Normal.

“Hmph.”

Yanking open the door of the guest room, I walk in and open the window shades to let in the moonlight. The sheets are cold and the unfamiliar bed is hard to relax in, but as much as I don’t particularly want to be alone right now either, I am not going to put up with Sylvain’s judgments.

With a soft _plop_ Wolfie jumps up onto the bed. He curls up next to me and I pet him until he starts purring. He nudges my hand with his head and I smile.

After a while as I start to drift off, I hear the door creak open and see Sylvain’s tall shadow in the doorway.

I ignore him, hoping he will go away, but he walks over and slips into bed beside me. To my relief, he rolls onto his side to face away from me.

“I don’t care whether you are normal or not,” he says quietly. “I’m happy when I’m around you. And in times like this, your presence is comforting, even if you are angry at me.”

I stay silent, not sure what I am supposed to say to that. Certainly not the truth. I’m not Sylvain, always ready to deliver a sappy speech. I can’t even be like Dimitri, who although more awkward than me, somehow manages to say some heartfelt dramatic bullshit whenever the moment calls for it. 

I don’t know how to say things like ‘It’s comforting to be around you too’ without it sounding absolutely ridiculous.

Then I remember what I intend to do in the morning and my frustration with him slips away. If something goes wrong tomorrow somehow, I don’t want to have spent tonight pushing him away for no other reason than I stubbornly didn’t feel like setting aside my awkwardness enough to be kind. Even so, I still don’t know what to say. 

Tentatively, I reach out and put my hand on Sylvain’s shoulder. He rolls onto his back and looks at me questioningly.

I know I am just being morbid even entertaining the thought that I might die tomorrow. When have I ever been afraid of an adversary? But asking that doesn’t matter, does it? This adversary isn’t like ones I have fought before. He fights dirty; he sticks in the shadows. My blade might not be the right weapon to fight him.

And if I die tomorrow, what is the point in being ‘uptight’ as everyone calls it?

I realize that I got lost in thought with Sylvain still staring in confusion at me. Coming back to reality, I look back at him and open my mouth to say something. But the words still don’t come.

I give up and rest my head back on the pillows. Sylvain looks disappointed but he masks it swiftly behind a smile.

“I’ll wake you up if you have more nightmares,” he says. “I hope you get some sleep.”

“Thanks.”

I put my arm around him stiffly, not sure what he will even do. I so rarely initiate any kind of physical contact.

He closes his eyes and relaxes, neither pulling away nor pushing to be closer. And after a few minutes, I relax too. My restlessness keeps me awake longer than him and by the time he has drifted off, I am at ease enough being next to him that I lean my head on his shoulder and close my eyes.

I don’t have to be ‘normal’ to understand the comfort of touch like this. In moments like earlier when I am distraught or in pain, it does feel condescending. It does make me feel weak. But this I understand - the warmth that comes from being so close to him, the soothing sound of his quiet breathing, the slight citrus smell of his skin. 

And it makes me want to be closer still. It makes me wish I could get used to this and not have to have the trauma of near death be the only thing that can make me bold enough to seek it out.

But after a while, Sylvain shifts in his sleep, rolling onto his side towards me. His arm slips around me and face is so close to mine that I can feel his breath on my lips. Shock holds me paralyzed for a moment, then another feeling creeps in - longing.

On impulse, I reach out and brush a strand of hair out of his eyes. My hand lingers on the side of his head and my touch, soft as it is, wakes him. As his eyes flutter open, I panic again. But he doesn’t move away or speak. Blinking in confusion, he looks at me searchingly.

My ridiculous heart is pounding and I realize that I am staring at his mouth. Without thinking, I lean in slightly closer. Sylvain catches his breath and his lips part slightly in anticipation.

“Will you get off me?” I say, shoving him away abruptly. “It’s bad enough you follow me from room to room. Can you at least stop hanging all over me? I’m not a pillow.”

He grumbles something I can’t hear and flips over onto his other side, pulling the blankets up tighter around him.

Retreating to the far end of the bed, I bury my face in a pillow, berating myself for my absurd stupidity. The satin cools my face that is flushed in embarrassment and I begin to relax. I didn’t do anything strange. It was only a few seconds really before I moved away. It just felt much longer. Sylvain won’t think anything of it.

I take a deep breath and exhale slowly in an attempt to calm my racing heartbeat. This is why I don’t get too close to him. This is why I usually maintain my self-control and don’t let my head get caught up in foolishness like that. It is entirely pointless anyways.

Just go to sleep, Felix. Stop being an idiot and wasting thought on inconsequential things. You have much to do in the morning.


	6. The Graveyard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix vs. Serial Killer. Who will win?

## 6 - THE GRAVEYARD

###  **Felix**

Galloping past the guards at the entrance to the forest, I leave them in my dust as I enter the trail. The sharp spring chill in the wind clarifies my weary senses and steels my nerves.

Along the meandering bends of the river, through the wildflowers and thickets, I ride like a bat out of hell towards the clearing. The dawn grows stronger and by the time I reach the marker where I diverge from the trail, it is bright enough for some of the cold, white light to illuminate the woods.

I jump off my horse and tie the reins to a tree branch. No sense in taking him with me just so he can bolt again.

Strapping a shovel to my back and drawing my sword, I step into the shadows. I walk carefully, silent as a cat, through the trees, senses at the alert for the smallest sign of movement. It is slow going, but I will not be caught flat-footed again. 

When I grow near to the clearing, I skirt around it, searching for the murderer. I don’t need Mercedes’s intuition to know that something feels off. But I cannot rush into the clearing yet. I have to be methodical.

Only after I have determined that no one is lurking do I dare to move towards the edge of the trees. Through a gap in the branches, I see a splash of red across a patch of grass and I catch my breath, looking around once more to make sure no one is near.

I am vulnerable if I step into the light, but he is moreso. If I go into the clearing, I force him to fight me in the open.

Dreading what I will find, I move past the branches and into the clearing. There I am met with a sight that chills me to the bone.

In the exact middle of the grass is a naked corpse, carved into pieces. Its torso is intact, but its limbs are gone, placed at points in a circle around the body - the same spots where the trillium flowers were yesterday. 

Revulsion twists in my stomach at the sickening sight and I walk over to the corpse. Its head is missing but I cannot see it anywhere in the clearing.

“You want me dead?” I yell. “Then come kill me!”

But the woods give me no answer. 

Keeping my sword raised, I lean down and touch the corpse. It is still warm. He is close by.

  
  


###  **Sylvain**

I yawn and stretch, but panic hits me when I hear the clink of metal handcuffs and my arms won’t move.

Opening my eyes, I look around in alarm at the guest room and the empty side of the bed where Felix was.

“You son of a bitch!”

I strain at the handcuffs but the sturdy oak bedposts they are locked onto don’t give.

“You BASTARD!” 

How the hell did he manage to cuff me? I must have slept hard.

“OLIVER! OLIVER! HELP!”

But no one comes and when I keep yelling, Wolfie jumps up onto the bed and stares at me.

“Go get help!” I tell him.

He curls up into a ball on a pillow and goes to sleep.

“Damn you, Felix,” I growl.

Well, lucky for me, this isn’t the first time I have woken up in handcuffs. It’s not even the second or third.

Taking a deep breath and focusing my energy, I cast the small fire spell Dorothea taught me for just such an occasion. It isn’t strong enough to kill someone, but it can burn through a bedpost.

After several minutes I manage to weaken the charred post enough to break it off with a fierce yank on the cuffs. Soon after I am free of the other one. Now to get these damn things off.

I search through the drawers in the room until I find a hairpin.

Muttering curses, I pick the locks on the cuffs and slide them off my wrists. Grabbing my spear, I sneak through the house, glad that I am probably more familiar with it than the servants. Then I bolt to the stable, swiftly saddle my horse and gallop off to the woods.

I just hope I am not too late to get there before Felix does anything stupid.

  
  


###  **Felix**

“Come kill me! I know you’re here! You want revenge on me? Come take it!”

Ranting into the silence for the past half hour and waiting for a reply has accomplished nothing. Maybe the killer has fled. It is his method to leave the bodies, not to attack openly. That’s the mark of a coward. Running into him yesterday could have been a fluke. He would not have been expecting us to know where he was.

Is he even here?

I wait another quarter hour, tensed and ready for a fight. But when still nothing happens, I plant my blade in the ground where I can easily grab it and unsling the shovel. Moving aside a severed arm, I sink the shovel into the earth and start digging.

After a few feet of soil, it runs into something hard. I stop and check my surroundings again, then work on clearing away enough of the dirt that I can see a glimpse of bones and half-decayed flesh.

With my fears confirmed, I move over to where the other arm is lying and move it aside. It doesn’t take long to unearth another buried body, this one older than the other, for it is just a skeleton at this point.

Under the two legs are also bodies and when I return to the center of the clearing, I know I will likely find a fifth beneath the fresh corpse. I reach down to pick up the limbless body, but it is so heavily soaked in blood that my composure finally breaks. Dropping it, I stagger back a step and double over, gagging and choking.

I have seen people butchered messily on battlefields, lying around like pieces of rotted meat in the mud of bloodsoaked dirt. In the terror of war, soldiers can become monsters and humans transform into raging boars. 

But here in the beautiful forest, here in my home, where I have ran and played since boyhood - to find atrocities in this peaceful sanctuary, done to an innocent man who never held a blade nor marched to battle… This is something no amount of bloodshed could have prepared me for. And it has been happening all along, all throughout those years of innocence and joy. This monster has grown up alongside me in my own land.

Rage burns away the horror weakening me and I grab my sword. My bloodied hands slip a little on the hilt and I clutch it tighter, steadying myself.

“Come kill me!” I yell. “That’s the final step of your game, isn’t it? To kill me? Do it! Let’s end this!”

When no answer comes, I drop my weapon and kick aside the shovel. 

“There! I will make it easier for you!”

Finally I am rewarded with a glimpse of movement, but it isn’t a figure in the shadows. It is something being launched towards me.

I dodge out of the way and something hits the grass a foot in front of me. 

It is the severed head. 

I barely have time to register the crest carved onto his forehead before it explodes, splattering blood and flesh across me.

I gag and reach for my sword, but a strange mist and smoke is filling the air and my head is growing faint. I feel the effects of the drug and try to run away from it, holding my breath. But it is too late.

I stumble to my sword, charging in the direction the head had been thrown from. I make it four or five steps before I collapse, gasping for breath. The sky above me shifts and spins in dizzying patterns and I roll onto my stomach, trying to push myself up from the ground. 

Fingers close around my throat, hot and sticky with blood. I scream, dragging myself away. When I look back, I realize it was only one of the detached arms on the ground, lifeless and still.

I push myself up to my hands and knees, but the reeling feeling in my mind turns my stomach and I throw up. Finally I manage to stand and pick up my sword. I stagger in what I think was the direction I was headed until I slip on the wet grass and fall once more.

I feel more than hear a presence nearby and I roll onto my back, snatching up my sword. A tall figure in a gray mask looms over me and I swing at it instinctively. It blocks my strike with a blade of its own, then moves out of sight.

Fury gets me back on my feet but the clearing keeps shifting from light to shadow, disorienting me enough that I can’t see the attacker. A blade slashes through the air an inch from my head and I whirl around to see the masked figure again.

I throw myself at him, attacking viciously. He evades my sword effortlessly and strikes back. The lag in my senses slows me and I only barely manage to block his blade in time. He dances around me deftly, toying with me as we trade blows.

Then he advances, his attacks intensifying but never cutting my skin. He forces me to fall back a step, then another. Struggling to fight through the crippling effects of the drug, I try to gain ground again, but am forced to retreat another step.

The masked man lunges for me quickly and as I try to dodge his thrust, I trip over the corpse in the center of the clearing and fall. I swing my sword up to block his next attack, but nothing happens.

Skeletal arms rise up from the ground beneath the limbless corpse and seize my wrists, wrenching the blade free of my hands. I look around frantically and catch sight of a shadow retreating back into the forest.

“No!” I yell. “Come back! Kill me!”

I would rather die than let him get away again.

A voice comes from the trees and my senses are too scrambled to tell how close, nor from what direction.

“I don’t need to,” it says. “When I’m done, you’ll kill yourself. You won’t have anything left to live for.”

“Coward!” I cry. “Do it yourself!”

Laughter comes to my ears, casual, relaxed, like a friend laughing at a joke. It echoes around me until it seems more like it is coming from within my own skull rather than the clearing. Alongside it rises up more noises - incoherent voices, the clash of steel, the cries of battle. I scream and clamp my hands over my ears but it doesn’t stop. It only grows louder.

The air becomes heavy with the stench of blood and I choke until my head grows bleary from lack of air. The feeling dims the noise just enough that I can focus and gasp oxygen back into my lungs.

I sit up and strain to see through the shifting shadows as I hear footsteps approaching. Their pace quickens and suddenly the figure looms back into view, its blade glinting as it strikes. I roll over and the sword embeds itself into the dirt next to me.

Desperately, I scramble away, searching for my dropped weapon. My fingers close around its hilt just in time to block the next strike. Again I pick myself up and again we trade blows. My vision is so blurry I can barely see the killer, but my fighting instincts, ingrained through a lifetime of training, are not so easily overcome.

This time I keep up with the killer’s strikes better, circling him and waiting for an opening. I see my chance and thrust my sword, but the figure lunges to the side and trips me as I step forward. With a savage kick, he knocks me down to the ground.

I wait for the sting of his blade, but nothing happens. The footsteps race away and when I lift myself up, I know he has retreated again.

Is he trying to wear me down?

It won’t work. I can do this all day, even without my mind or wits. I can kill him. I swear, I will kill him!

Focus, Felix. Focus! Regain your clarity. Focus on what is real.

The pounding of my heart, the coolness of the air, the wet grass beneath my feet, the familiar grip of my sword in my hands, the blood dripping into my eyes.

Blood?

I feel for a wound on my head but there is none, just the blood on my skin. I wipe furiously at my eyes, but my sleeve remains unstained. It is there! I can feel it!

Fuck! Am I wounded or not? How am I supposed to tell what is real and what isn’t?

My legs feel weak and I drop down to my knees, shaking. The world around grows dark but no moon or stars rise to illuminate the clearing.

Cold. The cold of night. How could it be night already?

Footsteps! Or is it my heart pounding?

A scream pierces the silence and I jump, staring around blindly in the dark. Again. Then a whimper, a cry.

This time when the scream comes it is faint and hoarse and the ragged ache in my throat makes me realize it was my own.

Mumbled words. What are they saying?

Stop it! Quiet!

The laughter echoes around in my head.

QUIET!

The dirt shifts as I try to crawl away and I feel my hands touch bones and ice-cold skin.

Footsteps again! Real footsteps. A cry, words, a voice not my own.

Adrenaline gets me on my feet, charging at the figure running through the shadows towards me. My sword is still in my hands somehow and I raise it and swing at the killer.

A scream. My own? No, someone else’s. His.

Phantom blood is still dripping into my eyes and I scrub it away swiftly, clearing my vision just enough to see the figure standing before me. He is shouting something but I can’t hear what. I can barely see him, just feel in my instincts his presence and movements.

I strike, metal clashing against metal. Something about the sound is off. Something is different.

He falls back a step. Attack! Now is the chance!

The shadows grow lighter, slivers of my clarity returning.

That uncanny clash of metal comes again as he blocks my blade. What’s wrong with it? What is it?

 _Felix_. There's a voice gasping my name. Where's it coming from? Is it my own? Where?

A scream. Pain in my throat. My own scream.

 _Fee_.

Another strike, another block, another strike, fall back a step, press forward.

_Fee, don’t attack me. Please!_

I can't place the voice, but it's growing clearer in my mind.

The figure moves away; I lunge forward.

_Oh goddess, oh shit. Fee. Fee, please. Put your sword down. It’s me!_

I strike faster this time, my body growing stronger, and am rewarded with a cry. But something is wrong. Something is off. Think! Focus!

_Felix! Listen to me. You’re not yourself._

I take a deep breath, willing clarity to return to my mind. The shadows lift slightly and I can feel the wind on my skin once more and sense my own movements better. There is red in my vision - the drops of blood again. No, vivid red. Not blood. It is too bright.

“Felix!”

I yell and swing at the source of the voice, sure now that it is being spoken aloud and not just a figment of my imagination or a product of my own thoughts.

Metal on metal. Not a ring. Not the slice of blades against blades. It is the clash of a sword on a spear.

“Fee, listen to me! Listen to me! I love you and I’m not going to hurt you. Listen to me! Focus! I know you love me too and you’re not going to hurt me either.”

I freeze and my sword falls from my hand. 

The second I drop it, the man tackles me, throwing my sword out of reach and pinning my wrists down to the ground. 

“Come back to reality, Fee. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

His voice quiets the chaos in my mind and soothes my panic enough that my eyes begin to clear. I blink and the blur of red clarifies to Sylvain’s hair, falling messily across his pale face. 

“Sylvain,” I whisper, staring up into his eyes in horror.

“Oh thank heaven,” he says.

I look up at him, open-mouthed, struggling to form coherent thoughts from the mess of my emotions.

“Are you yourself again? Can I let you go?” he asks.

“I… I’m so sorry.”

Sylvain laughs breathlessly in relief and releases my wrists, taking my face in his hands and kissing my forehead. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be alright.”

“He’s here,” I say. “I fought him.”

“You fought me,” Sylvain says.

“No, the sword… Sword not spear. It wasn’t you.”

“You were thrashing around swinging at nothing when I found you. There was no one else.” Sylvain brushes his thumb across my cheek and smiles. “I told you that you wouldn’t hurt me, and you didn’t. I was right.”

The sky above his head shifts like clouds passing across the sun. It begins to reel once more and I fight again for clarity, telling myself the shadows aren’t real. 

“I’m going to get you out of here. Can you walk?” Sylvain asks. 

The shadows aren’t real. None of this has been real. 

“Fee, listen to me. Can you-”

As Sylvain speaks, one shadow, sharper and clearer than the ones in my head, appears and I start to cry out but before I can, I hear the familiar sound of a blade piercing flesh and hear Sylvain gasp, his eyes widening. 

The blade is pulled free and Sylvain collapses on top of me. Overtop him stands a man clothed in black, with a gray mask wrapped around his face and a hood covering his head. 

The masked man pulls a bottle from his pocket and says, “Enjoy round two.”

As I try to move out from under Sylvain’s body, he drops the bottle and stomps on it. As soon as the glass shatters, smoke explodes into the air and the man runs.

For one moment, I am paralyzed with the very choice I wanted nothing more than to avoid. I could try to heal Sylvain or I could give chase.

_“I will always choose you.”_

Staying isn’t choosing him. Staying is just ensuring that he dies by my hand instead of the killer’s.

Grabbing Sylvain’s spear, I jump to my feet and race after the killer. I don’t dare breathe until I am free of the smoke, but even so I can feel it seeping into my mind.

Let it take my eyes and my thoughts from me. Let it throw me into some hell reality where I can’t tell up from down nor left from right. It cannot take my instincts and it cannot take my intent, focused now not just by anger at the killer’s brutality, but by a fury and grief so much more innate and personal that it could keep control of my body long after my senses are gone.

The killer is swift, but he underestimates me. His steps do not have the desperation mine do and soon I catch up with him. As we flee into the dense woods, the shadows and trees turn into a vortex around me, threatening to throw me off balance.

But when I swing at him, my weapon is met by his. The onslaught of my attacks forces him to back up and I leap forward through the rushing wind and chaos to strike harder. This time I hear a cry echoing around me that I think is not my own.

Then pain rushes through my senses as his blade bites into my arm. For a moment, I falter and I see the man turn away to run. His shadow starts to melt into the darkness, but I find my feet moving after him of their own accord.

He only makes it a few steps before he screams and falls to the ground, my spear protruding from his back.

I stumble over and yank out the spear. Gripping it with both hands, I plunge it deep into the killer’s body, twisting its serrated steel head until the man’s gasping breaths cease and his body grows limp.

Sylvain!

I turn back in the direction we came and run. As I near the clearing, branches and ferns wrap around my feet and vines snake up my legs, tethering me to the ground. I try to pull free of them, but the ground shifts beneath me and I feel myself sinking down into the dirt.

Blood is dripping across my skin again, this time running down my arm. I touch it and wonder if it is real or not. But there is fierce, sharp pain flowing from it.

It’s real.


	7. Unstoppable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of their fight with the murderer, Felix and Sylvain have an argument that leads to a startling revelation about their feelings for each other.

## 7 - UNSTOPPABLE

###  **Felix**

A bandage cinching tight around my arm wakes me and I open my eyes to see a policewoman kneeling down next to me.

“Lord Fraldarius!” she says. “Are you wounded elsewhere?”

“I’m…” I wince and rub my forehead. “I’m fine.”

“You’re covered in blood, my lord!”

“Not mine. I fought the murderer in the clearing. I- I think I killed him. Is he-?”

“We found his body. He is dead.”

I gasp and stagger to my feet. “Sylvain?”

Fear passes across her expression as she answers, “He’s alive, but he’s-”

Without waiting for her to finish, I run into the clearing and find Sylvain with my sword in his hands, lunging at the police officers and shouting incoherently. They surround him, weapons drawn but not raised, too afraid to attack a lord.

“Get back!” I say. “Back!”

Sylvain sees me approaching and charges. Fuck, does he look horrifying, covered in blood, eyes staring in terror at ghosts that don’t exist. 

Even though my body feels shaky, I can still move quick enough to evade his attack.

“My lord!” someone cries.

“Stay back!” I yell.

Sylvain strikes again but I dodge out of the way. It is hard to tell, soaked in blood as he is, but I know he must have managed to heal his wound or he wouldn’t be on his feet right now. 

“Sylvain, it’s me, Felix,” I say, holding out my hands. “I’m not going to hurt you. The killer is dead. We can go home. It’s just the drug fucking with your mind. I’m not your enemy.”

He hesitates for a second in confusion, then attacks again. But his movements are not quite as sure or aggressive this time and when I dodge his strike, I see my opportunity and leap forward, grabbing his wrist and prying the sword from his grip. Throwing it to the side, I seize his wrists again and twist his arms behind his back.

He nearly breaks free, but I hold onto him with all the strength I have left.

“Sylvain, listen to me. It’s Felix - your Felix. Stop fighting me.”

Crying out, he thrashes against my grip.

“Sylvain!” I move closer and rest my head against his neck, saying quietly in his ear, “Sylvain, don’t fight me. It’s over now. Let’s go home.”

He stops struggling, gasping for breath, and mumbles, “It’s a trick. It’s not you.”

On a dangerous impulse, I let go of his wrists and wrap my arms around his waist instead. “It is me. Who else would be stupid enough to go near you when you are raging around like a cornered wolf? Just me. I’m the only one who loves you enough to be that stupid.”

He drops down to his knees and covers his face in his hands. I kneel down in front of him and wait for him to look up at me.

“I’m going to take you home,” I say. “Come with me.”

“We couldn’t save them,” he says hoarsely. “They’re all dead.”

“I killed the murderer. He isn’t killing anyone else.”

“It’s too late.” He hunches over and wraps his arms around himself. “Dimitri, Byleth, Ingrid… He killed them. I tried to heal them, but they-”

Oh goddess. That is what he saw in his hallucinations, isn’t it? He thought the bodies here were theirs.

“It wasn’t real. They were never here. They’re far away from here, safe and sound. I promise you. It was all in your head. Once the drug wears off, you’ll see. They’re safe and so am I.”

“My lord,” Inspector Agust says, walking over to us warily. “What happened here?”

I put my hand on Sylvain’s shoulder and look up at Agust. “We encountered the murderer here yesterday but he drugged us and escaped. I did not want to risk your men because I knew the drug would make them turn on each other, so I returned this morning. I found the corpse in the clearing and unearthed more - older ones. Then the murderer attacked. He drugged Sylvain and I, but I managed to kill him. The drug’s effects have worn off for me, but Sylvain is still coming out of it. Let me get him home safely then I will answer whatever questions you have for me.”

“I will have my officers escort him to your house, my lord. I would have you look over some things here with me first.”

“No,” I reply. “He could still dissociate again. I must see him safely home first.”

Agust starts to argue but I glare up at him and say, “The killer is dead. My priority is protecting the living now. Margrave Gautier was severely wounded. Step aside and let me see to him.”

I help Sylvain to his feet and pull his arm across my shoulders so I can support him as he staggers across the clearing towards where the officer’s horses are tethered.

“How did you find the killer?” Agust asks.

“A hunch.”

“Are you certain it is him?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me of this place?”

“Because it would be your corpse lying here if I had.”

“The bodies buried here are old,” he says. “Did you know they were here?”

“No.”

“Then why did you bring a shovel?”

“Inspector,” I say, looking over my shoulder at him. “There will be time for your questions later.”

He gives in and motions for his officers to go with me. I help Sylvain into the saddle of one of the horses and climb up behind him. He is trembling and his eyes are still closed, but his violent terror seems to have faded.

I take the reins in one hand and hold onto him with my other arm, nudging the horse into a walk. Several officers ride beside us, keeping careful watch to make sure we don’t bolt or try to kill anyone.

I ignore them, focusing on trying to keep my breathing steady and the panic at bay. There is too much in my mind and heart to make sense of. 

“You went without me,” Sylvain says after a while.

“And yet you followed.” I keep my tone quiet and calm, but anger bleeds into it nonetheless.

“Of course I did.”

“You did exactly what he wanted. He set up all of this so that I would kill you. And it nearly fucking worked,” I reply.

“You’d never-”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say in a sharp whisper. “When I backed down, he killed you anyways and drugged me up again. If I hadn’t killed him, I would have woken up covered in blood with your corpse next to me. And everyone would have assumed I killed you. And I probably would have believed them.”

“But we survived.”

“We got lucky!”

The officers glance over at us and I force my voice to stay quiet as I add, “Don’t use dumb luck to justify what happened today. You should be dead.”

He doesn’t reply and we spend the rest of the ride in silence.

* * *

Wolfie finds me sitting on the floor in the corner of the library, hidden between two tall bookcases, and he jumps into my lap, snuggling up against me. I smile faintly and pet him.

“Thanks for finding me,” I whisper, kissing the top of his head.

He purrs contentedly and for once he doesn’t slip away when I put my arms around him.

Here in the dim, dusty silence of the library, the horror of the day finally feels distant enough that the thoughts of blood and terror running obsessively through my mind fade away. In its wake settles in a deep sense of relief that I did not lose Sylvain today, and guilt at the fact that the families of the murder victims were not so lucky.

“I thought I might find you here,” Sylvain says, walking into the room. His hair is a mess of wet curls and he is dressed only in a pair of pants, bandages wrapped across his bare chest.

“No one ever looks for me in a library,” I say.

He sits down next to me and pets Wolfie.

“Did they patch you up well?” I ask.

“Yes. You have a decent healer, although she lectured me the whole time on my sloppy healing spell. I didn’t really have the energy to explain I was hallucinating and half-dead when I cast it.”

Wolfie reaches his arbitrary limit of attention and leaps out of my arms, wandering away. I can feel Sylvain staring at me but I can’t bring myself to look over at him, not while my emotions are so tangled up and volatile right now.

I should tell him to go. But do I really want to be alone?

“Felix,” he says.

“What?”

“I know you’re angry with me, but for right now, can we just-”

“Angry?” I say.

No, don’t do this right now, Felix. You will only say something you regret.

“I’m not angry. I’m furious,” I continue.

Fuck.

“You’re furious? You left me handcuffed to a bed!” he replies, moving over to sit in front of me so I am forced to look at him. “I understand that you don’t want me to get myself killed, but does it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t particularly want you to die either? Or that I don’t need you to protect me? I’m not a lazy schoolboy anymore! I haven’t been for years.”

“It’s not that I thought you couldn’t take him. It was that I wasn’t sure if you could take me.”

“Oh really?” He raises his fists and says, “Try me! Come on. Let’s settle this bullshit right now. If I win, you never get to use that as an excuse ever again.”

I swat his fists away. “Stop it.”

He swings at me and I grab his wrist at the last second and say, “Stop!”

“How else are we going to settle this?” he demands. “Tell me. Because this is not happening again.”

“What do you want from me? To just say ‘to hell with it’ and not give a damn if you run into danger like you always do?”

“Hypocrite,” Sylvain says. “I found you drenched in blood, waving your sword around and screaming at him to kill you. What about that isn’t reckless and stupid?”

“I was trying to get him to fight me head-on, not just toy with me. But he said that he didn’t need to kill me. He said that I would end up killing myself. And you know what? Maybe he would have been right. If I had killed you on accident back there-”

“Don’t,” Sylvain says with a frightened look. “Don’t even think that.”

“What exactly would I have left? A father? A brother?” I laugh bitterly. “I’d be alone. Totally alone.”

“You have other friends.”

“None like you.”

This is getting dangerously emotional and I try to rein in the stupid things I keep saying, but I can’t keep the words to myself like I usually can.

“You remember our promise to stick together?” I continue. “You seem to think it was sentiment that made me say that all those years ago. That it was some sweet sign of friendship or something. But it wasn’t something I said because I was feeling happy.”

His brow furrows with concern. “It wasn’t?”

“I made that promise because I was terrified. I didn’t want to lose anyone else. If you go, I’m going with you. That’s what it meant to me. That’s why I’m doing my damndest to keep you alive, despite your best efforts.”

Sylvain stares back at me, at a loss for words.

“That’s crazy,” he says finally.

“Hmph. What did you expect? You know I’m crazy.”

“No, I mean that you can’t spend your whole life scared like that. You have to trust me. When I made that promise, it meant that nothing was going to come between us. Right now you’re the thing coming between us and I’m not gonna let that happen!”

“Just don’t get yourself killed, alright? We don’t have to have this argument if you will just agree to be more careful,” I say.

He shakes his head. “Never. When you rush headlong into a fight, I’ll be there to have your back. Every time. And you can’t stop me.”

“For the love of Seiros, Sylvain-”

“I am careful!” he says, raising his voice. “I take care of the people I love! I’m not reckless with their lives. Me standing by you in a fight is me being careful! You and I always have better odds of surviving if we are with each other. If you can’t see that then that’s your own arrogance blinding you.”

I haven’t seen Sylvain this worked up in a long time and the anger in his expression scares me.

“I’m not…” I trail off, not sure what I meant to say.

“Not what?”

“Nothing.”

“Go ahead and speak your mind. Tell me what an idiot I am.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“I am constantly told otherwise by you.”

“I’m the idiot.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because-”

The relief of surviving really does make a person do irrational things. I can’t even think of what to say. He is looking at me so intently that I can barely think at all. There is just the feeling of incredible gratitude that he is even alive to be here yelling at me.

“Because what?” he says.

But I can’t remember what we were arguing about. All the anger has been knocked out of me when that feeling of relief hit me like a sucker punch in the gut.

“Don’t brush me off in the middle of this. If you have something to say, say it,” Sylvain demands, planting his palm on the wall behind me and leaning closer to glare at me. “I want to settle this now, once and for-”

Before I can stop myself, I grab the back of his neck and kiss him. As soon as I realize what I am doing, I let go, frantically hoping I can play this off as a joke or come up with some kind of excuse for why I-

Sylvain slips his hand behind my neck and kisses me passionately until my heart is pounding.

Pulling back, he looks at me questioningly and I stare at him with wide, startled eyes.

Say something! What do I say? What could I possibly say?

Sylvain stands up and holds his hand out. Taking it nervously, I let him pull me to my feet. 

I really should say something.

With a smile, he kisses me again, stepping closer until my back is pressed up against the wall. A small part of me wants to shove him away and run. But instead I put my arms around him and hold him closer.

Something about his body in my arms and his lips on mine feels strangely familiar and it helps settle the fear in my mind. Maybe it is just that this is the first time I have kissed someone who wasn’t virtually a stranger. Or maybe it simply feels normal because I have imagined it so many times before.

Sylvain stops after a minute and rests his forehead against mine. “I don’t know if this settles our argument,” he whispers.

“Forget the argument,” I say and kiss him again, desperately this time, wanting to get as much of him as I can before this whim of his passes and I am left with the awkward consequences of my impulsiveness. I know how Sylvain gets after a battle or a fight. Drunk off the relief of having survived, he always goes and finds some pretty stranger to mess around with until he calms down.

“Fee,” he says. “Fee, stop.”

Fuck. 

I freeze, my whole body stiff with panic. Should I apologize? Should I try to claim I was out of my mind or something?

I can’t bring myself to look up at him until he says, “You never kiss me when you’re sober. How about we wait a while and see if you still want me once you’ve gotten some rest and have recovered from everything that’s happened today?”

What?

“I’ve never kissed you before,” I say.

He steps out of my arms and says, “Not that you remember.”

“What do you mean? I would remember if I had.”

“You did this after the Battle of the Eagle and the Lion. You got roaring drunk at our victory celebration. When I hauled your ass back to your dormitory, you kissed me. You were all high on the adrenaline and liquor and you weren’t in your right mind. So I left and when I saw you in the morning you didn’t remember it.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I saw no reason to make you feel uncomfortable,” he says. “It was just the liquor. People do all kinds of silly things when they’re drunk. You know, I once kissed a-”

“I’m sober now,” I interrupt.

“In a way. But trauma is also one hell of a drug.”

He turns away, but I run over in front of him to block his way to the door. “Just tell me if I offended you. Don't try to make it seem like you're doing me a favor! Be honest with me.”

Sylvain laughs. “You want to pick another fight? Damn it, Fee. I’m too tired to argue anymore.”

“Just-”

“Listen to me,” he says. “Your healer gave me strict orders to rest. I’m going to go get a couple hours of sleep before the inspector grills us with questions. After that, if you sober up and regret it, don’t be embarrassed. Just tell me you didn’t mean it and we can go back to being friends as if nothing happened.”

“Is that what you want?” I ask.

“All I have ever wanted is to be around you,” he says. “in whatever way you choose.”

He leaves before I have to say anything and I exhale a long breath, leaning against an armchair and wondering what the hell just happened.


	8. Day's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspector Agust grills Felix & Sylvain.  
> Sylvain waits nervously for Felix to bring resolution to the uncertainty hanging between them. He thought he dealt with his longing for Felix and became contented with a platonic friendship years ago, thanks to some sage advice from Byleth. But after their kiss earlier, it's hard not to get his hopes up again.

## 8 - DAY’S END

###  **Sylvain**

“We’ve told you all we know,” Felix says. “What information do you have for me, Inspector?”

Agust sighs wearily and moves aside the stack of papers on his desk. He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.

“The man you killed in the forest,” he says. “we don’t know his name yet. We are having trouble tracking down anyone who knew him so far. But it’s only been half a day. We will get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, we searched the area and found an abandoned forester’s house where he had been living. My officers are compiling reports on its contents as we speak. There was a workshed behind it where he obviously kept his prisoners before killing them. One thing we do know is that he used to be a soldier in the Fraldarius army.”

“That’s why the bodies there are from right before the war. He marched out of town soon after he killed them,” I say.

“If murder is his favorite pastime, it doesn’t explain why he waited two years after the war before picking it up again,” Agust says.

“Maybe he thought he had gotten enough bloodshed during the war. But he grew bored,” Felix says.

“Hm. Well, his motivations don’t matter much to me now that he is dead. What matters is why he was targeting you specifically. For your safety we must figure that out.” Agust puts his glasses back on and looks at Felix firmly. “Speaking of your safety, Lord Fraldarius, I must insist that next time an investigation of any kind occurs, you deign to work alongside my officers, not independently of them. A lack of backup can be fatal, and nearly was for Margrave Gautier, had he not had a healing spell up his sleeve. Surely you understand.”

“And what would a posse of policemen accomplished once that clearing went up in smoke with his drugs? It would have been a slaughter,” Felix says.

“We could have set a trap for him and drew him out.”

“He was too smart for that. He knows those woods better than I do.”

“It was reckless to go alone, my lord. We aren’t at war anymore. Bravery and improvisation must give way to coordination and care. Your father was a warrior like you too. But he was also a ruler. He knew the difference. I hope that as the years pass, you too will learn the differences between times of peace and times of war.”

The moment Agust mentions Rodrigue I expect Felix to snap. I look at him worriedly, but he holds his composure.

“I appreciate your words, Inspector,” he says. “Let us hope no further violence occurs in our land that would necessitate us having this conversation again.”

Trying not to betray my surprise in my expression, I look down at the desk and pretend to idly study one of the papers.

“When you have a lead on who the killer was and a report on what you found in his dwelling, send word to me. I trust that for now there is nothing I can do but wait for your officers to complete their procedures,” Felix says stiffly, pushing his chair aside and standing up.

“Very well,” Agust says.

But as Felix walks to the door, Agust looks at me and says, “A word, Margrave Gautier?”

Felix glances at me but I nod at him and he leaves the office. Sitting back down, I ask, “What is it, Inspector?”

He shifts uncomfortably and says, “Due to the effects of the drugs distorting Duke Fraldarius’s perceptions of the events, I would like to ask you some questions to verify a few things. You arrived on the scene after he had been subjected to the poison, correct? So you had a chance to survey the scene sober?”

“I did.”

“First of all, why didn’t you accompany him?”

“He did not want to put me in danger.”

Agust nods. “Did you see the killer when you arrived?”

“No. He was in hiding. You have seen the way the drug’s hallucinations affect people. His plan was to engineer a situation in which Felix would attack me and kill me. Whether this was for the purpose of getting rid of me or simply to punish Felix, I don’t know. He was overconfident in his methods. No kind of hallucination would be powerful enough to cause Felix to harm me.”

“What state was Duke Fraldarius in when you found him?”

“He was disoriented, afraid - the same state I was in when you found us.”

“And you talked him out of it?”

“Yes. Just like he did to me.”

“After you calmed him, the killer appeared and stabbed you from behind? Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t see his face or encounter him in any way?”

“I had my back turned to him. He ran after he stabbed me and Felix chased him. I was too busy trying not to bleed to death to pay much heed to him.”

Agust nods and I realize that he doesn’t believe us in the slightest. We have no witnesses and have admitted we are unreliable sources ourselves due to the drug’s influence.

I shrug off my fears and ignore his suspicious look. All it takes is a few weeks of peace without more corpses turning up for them to know for sure they caught the right man. Their suspicion is only the dutiful wariness of the police. It is their job.

“You have not seen Duke Fraldarius in quite some time, right?” he asks.

“A year. How is that relevant?”

“What kind of mental and physical state was he in when you returned here earlier this week?”

I lean forward and give the inspector one of those soul-piercing looks that Byleth would always use to get me to fess up when I was trying to bullshit my way out of things. 

“How well do you know Felix?” I ask.

“I served his father for thirty years.”

“That’s not what I asked. Do you have any level of personal acquaintanceship with Felix?”

“Only since he returned from the war.”

“In that case, you have many years ahead of you before you can form any kind of understanding of his character, behavior and temperament. I advise you to trust the word of the person who knows him better than anyone and listen when I tell you that he is as he always has been - brave, honorable and above all else, loyal and kind. Whether or not you approve of his choice to face the murderer on his own, he did it because he has always been the kind of man to put the lives of others above his own. If you doubt that, you can ask our king. Dimitri would say the same of Felix, as would Archbishop Byleth.”

I feel a little proud of my pretty speech and my serious tone. I don’t know if it will have any effect in assuaging Agust’s concerns. But it will at least establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not going to humor his suspicions.

Agust straightens the papers on his desk and says, “Thank you, Margrave Gautier.”

I stand up but he stops me with one last question. “Why the crest?” He points at my chest. “It got sliced into you too. Surely you have a theory.”

“Theories come from evidence, not the other way around. And since gathering evidence is your area of expertise, Inspector, I will leave the theorizing to you. Good day.”

He gives me a nod of respect and I leave his office, catching up to Felix who is waiting in the street outside.

“That took a while,” he says.

Once we are out of earshot and back within the gates of the manor house, I tell him of our discussion and he sighs.

“They think I’m mad.”

“They are probably always going to think that,” I reply. “What matters is that people will stop getting killed and there will be no reason to question whether you are sane or not anymore.”

As we walk up to the door, it swings open and Oliver says, “Good evening, Master Felix. There is supper waiting in the dining room.”

“Thank you,” he says.

“Olly,” I say, “would you be so kind as to have it sent to the northern sitting room, the one with the big fireplace?”

He nods and I smile at him. “Thanks a million, buddy.”

“Why did you insist on being in here?” Felix asks as we walk into the sitting room. “It’s freezing on this side of the house.”

“I’ve got it covered,” I say, stacking up some tinder in the fireplace. I attempt to light it with my little fire spell and Felix laughs at me.

“Shut up! Magic takes focus,” I say.

“Just use a flint and steel.”

“No. I’m trying to impress you with my powerful magic.”

“I’m impressed,” he says. “Very impressed. Now can you just use a flint? It’s cold.”

I swear and focus on my magical energy until the fire spell flares to life again, strong enough this time to leave flames licking across the tinder. Carefully, I set a couple logs on top of it and cast another spell. Then the whole thing is flickering nicely.

“See? I’m a mage now,” I say.

A couple servants come in with food and we thank them, taking the plates gratefully. Neither of us have eaten much today.

“Should I light a few lamps? The sunlight’s all gone and firelight isn’t going to fill the whole room,” I say.

“It’s fine. I like the dark,” Felix answers.

Of course you do, you damn cat.

“I’ve always liked this room,” I say, studying the familiar landscape in one of the paintings as I munch on a pear. Felix’s mother had a habit of finding local artists and buying their work to fill this room. I never knew her, but her taste in art makes me think she must have been a great woman.

“Me too,” Felix says. “So many people have told me these paintings are nothing special but I just tell them to fuck off. I don’t need to know shit about art to know they are good.”

“You tell your own guests to fuck off?” I ask.

“Probably why I don’t get a lot of guests.”

I smile. “Who needs uncultured snobs anyways? I am an authority on art and I can tell you these are top-notch.”

Close enough to the firelight that I can see it clearly is a new piece, though. It is of the view over the garden from the guest room. Wolfie is perched on the window sill, licking his paws in the sunlight.

“Did you paint this?” I ask in astonishment.

“What?” Felix looks over at it and says, “Of course not. Have you lost your mind?”

“Who did then?”

“Mercedes. I told you: she visited me before she went to Duscur with Dedue.”

“I’m sorry that-”

“Don’t be,” he interrupts. “I am well aware that half the monastery gossips, you included, thought I had a crush on her, but it was never like that. She was like a sister to me. And Dedue is one of the best men. She did well for herself. I just wish it hadn't meant her leaving Faerghus.”

“I never thought you were in love with her. I just knew you two were close.”

“Come on. She was the only girl I’ve ever talked to willingly. I know what you all thought.”

“You talk to Ingrid!”

“That’s not the same. Ingrid is… Ingrid.”

“I’ll admit, I had a suspicion or two at first that you had a crush on her. She was too old to like you back of course, but I thought you might be smitten - the allure of older women and all that. But when the war started and we left the monastery, I knew you weren’t in love with her."

He looks over at me curiously. “How?”

“Because you went your separate ways. I know if you had loved her, you wouldn’t have left her side during a dangerous time like that. Even though her feelings for you were platonic, if you had truly loved her you would have stood by her nonetheless. You're unselfish like that, and you take care of the people you love.”

Felix smiles at me faintly at the compliment, but his tone falls serious as he replies, “Life seems pretty determined to pull us all apart... Fuck being the leaders of houses. Do you ever miss just being a soldier?”

“Yes and no,” I answer.

“What the hell does that mean?”

I sit down next to him by the hearth and think for a moment of how to put it into words. “I miss our lives back then, but I don’t miss the person I was. I like the person I am now. I think it’s the only version of me I haven’t hated.”

“Has so much changed? You still seem the same to me,” he replies.

“I do?”

He shrugs. “You’ve only been here a couple days. How am I supposed to know everything that’s happened to you in a year?”

“Well you will have plenty of time to. I’m not going anywhere.”

He smiles a little sadly and doesn’t reply.

“I’m not,” I insist. 

“You’ll have to. And then it will be another year. That’s life.”

“No, it’s not. I had a lot of pieces to pick up after the war, just like you did. But things are settled now. I can travel back and forth freely. And if you can finally find a good steward to hand off some responsibilities to, you can come visit me. I reckon we could spend most of the time together, at least until you’re sick of me.”

“I should have come with you up to the border to help instead of staying here. If I had maybe you wouldn’t have ended up with this,” he says, running his fingers across the scar on my face.

I laugh nervously at his touch. “It’s fine. I’ve found out that I can’t grow a beard to save my life so I need the scar to make my pretty face look like a man’s.”

He moves his hand away and gets up, poking at the fire for no reason. I watch him, trying to figure out what he has been thinking this afternoon while I was sleeping. I will have to wait and see. I don’t dare bring it up. I have made it through years of our friendship without ever jeopardizing its perfect balance. I am certainly not going to now.

Let it be what it will be. I meant what I said to him - being with him in any capacity is enough for me. 

As much as I know it is also a risk to give him the impression I don’t want him, I think it is a far greater one to let him know how much I do, how much I have ever since that night he first kissed me and it hit me like a slap in the face how attracted to him I had become without hardly realizing it.

I have chased after every girl or boy who so much as gave me a smile. Maintaining - no, not just maintaining… being genuinely content in - the platonic nature of our friendship is one of the only things I have done right in my life. 

I wrestled with these thoughts before and conquered them. After that night, I had gone to Byleth and told her of it, asking her for advice since the indecision of what to do was driving me crazy. Her words helped me keep a clear head.

_“Felix isn’t going anywhere. You have the rest of your life with him to figure out what to do. Wait until you have proven to yourself that you can make wise decisions. Then, if this actually is the way he feels about you, you will be ready. I know how strong your feelings are, but right now, honestly, Sylvain, I don’t think you understand well enough what real love looks like to be able to offer anything lasting and serious to him. And Felix obviously isn’t someone to treat these things lightly. For his sake, if not your own, don’t do something that might cause him to lose the person he loves and relies on most.”_

Her honesty had stung, but it had helped me make my decision. I dealt with my disappointment and desire and kept things the way they were. And after a while, the comfort and familiarity of our friendship returned and I grew satisfied with it again. After all these years, I have no reason to fear either outcome of Felix’s decision.

Let us be friends. Let us be lovers. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we stay together.

“Are you tired?” he asks after a bit.

“No. You?”

“I know there is no way in hell I’m sleeping tonight. Will you stay up with me for a while?”

“Of course. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Will you just talk? Everything feels normal when I’m just listening to you blabber on about things,” he says. “I want to feel normal for a while.”

He stops moving about restlessly and sits back down again.

“What do you want me to blabber about?”

“I don’t know. Usually you just start talking and I’m stuck listening to you. Why are you so quiet right now? What’s wrong with you?”

I sift through stories in my mind, trying to find the right one to tell him. But as I think, I notice him staring at me.

“Did I tell you in my letters about what happened on my trip a couple months ago to Fhirdiad?” I ask.

When he doesn’t answer, I continue.

“Well, I was a day’s ride away and this-”

Felix swears and I stop talking in alarm, looking over at his frustrated expression. “What?”

“Will you just tell me if I fucked up or not?” he asks.

“Of course you didn’t.”

“It’s just all these years you never said anything to me. You made eyes at everything with a pulse at Garreg Mach. Everyone but me.”

“You scare me.”

“So did Byleth and you still asked her out once.”

“And never again! She put the fear of hell into my heart. Not to mention, Dimitri threatened to exile me from Faerghus if I ever tried again.”

“It seems impossible that you would… but not…” 

He can’t even bring himself to say it, can he? Good Seiros, he looks so flustered it is almost funny.

Don’t laugh. For heaven’s sake, do not laugh, Sylvain.

“What are you looking at?” he demands.

“You,” I answer.

“Well stop it. You’re making me feel like a fool.” He gives a classic Felix _hmph_ and says, “You know what? This is absolutely ridiculous. Forget it happened. Today was hell and I wasn’t in my right mind. I’m sorry.”

But he is lying. It’s obvious. It wasn’t a whim, was it?

Oh shit, don’t fuck this up. Don’t fuck this up! You can do this. Stay calm.

I scoot over to sit side-by-side with him and put my arm around him. “Then let’s just keep going as we always have. I told you not to worry about it.”

He doesn’t reply, his jaw clenched as he stares down at the floor angrily.

“What’s wrong?”

“You really are an idiot,” he says. “A blind idiot!”

“What am I missing?”

“Ugh! Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“What do you want me to do? Read your mind?”

“Yes!”

“I’m going to need some words, Fee.”

“I don’t have them! I’m bad with words! I’m not you!” he says.

Alright. Time to go out on a limb, Sylvain, old boy.

I reach out and put my hand on his face, turning it towards me. I look into his eyes for a moment, gathering my courage. Then I lean in and press my lips against his tentatively, hoping I am not making a mistake and that this is the time I have waited so many years for.

He responds with all the intensity of his frustration and longing, grabbing the collar of my shirt and pulling me closer as he kisses me back.

After a while, all his nervousness slips away and he puts his arms around me. Assured that he does genuinely want me, I push him down on his back and move on top of him, propping myself up on my elbows as I kiss him. My chest twinges a bit with pain but it is easy to ignore when he slips his hands under my shirt and runs them across my bare skin.

I wondered if it would be like this - if the passion with which he lived and fought and trained would also be the way he loved. I caught a glimpse of it when he kissed me in the library and feeling it again now takes my breath away.

What the hell have I ever done to get this lucky?


	9. Terms of Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the harrowing experience of catching the murderer, Sylvain and Felix enjoy a few days of peace and time to learn about their feelings for each other.

## 9 - TERMS OF FRIENDSHIP

###  **Felix**

When I return to my room after my dawn training session, I find Sylvain awake and reading a book in bed.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he says with a dopey smile.

“If you ever say that again I will knife you.”

He gives me a hurt look.

“I mean it,” I say.

He mutters something under his breath and sets aside the book with a yawn.

“Fine. No compliments on your dashing good looks. I understand,” he says.

“Good. I would rather die than listen to you flatter me like some pretty girl you are trying to charm.”

“It’s not flattery, it’s- Nevermind. Coffee?”

“Sure.”

He gets out of bed and but before he leaves, he comes over and kisses me softly. I put my hand on the back of his neck and kiss him back with more passion. 

“Coffee first,” he says breathlessly.

“Coffee.”

He pauses at the door and looks back at me. “You’ve smiled more these past few days than in your entire adult life. I like it.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

He laughs and leaves to procure us coffee.

While he is gone, I pick up the sheaf of papers on the table and read over them again, unable to let go of the lingering questions that remain in Inspector Agust’s investigation.

Over the past five days we have learned the identity of the killer, the identities of his victims and a rough estimation of where and when they were kidnapped. But a name to put to his face is not enough.

_Riordan Asmer. Age thirty-two. Employed as a forester for five years before joining the army. Purportedly died in the war, but he returned home under an alias._

I have read the report ten times already but the mysteries that have yet to be solved are eating away at me. I have left them in Agust’s hands for it is not my place to take part in a police investigation. I shouldn’t even have been involved in apprehending the murderer at all. 

Sylvain has provided a wonderful distraction and sense of normalcy these past few days but I know if we don’t get answers soon I will have to interrupt our pleasant days to get involved again.

What was the drug that Asmer used to induce such strong psychosis? All of my physicians, potion-makers and mages, dark and light alike, can’t figure it out. They have identified the main ingredient as nightshade, but apart from that we are still in the dark as to how it is made or where Asmer got it.

And why the crest? Why did he have a vendetta against me? I never encountered him directly during the war. Perhaps I led his battalion into misfortune of some kind and someone he loved died. But wouldn’t his anger be turned at the empire in that case?

I know there is more to this puzzle, but as no more bodies have turned up in the woods or anywhere else, it seems we have time and peace to get to the bottom of it. In the end it matters more that we stopped him than why he committed his atrocities.

“I have returned triumphant!” Sylvain announces, nudging the door open with his foot and carrying in a tray with cups and scones.

“One black coffee, bitter and miserable as your soul,” he says, setting it in front of me. “And one delightful cup of bergamot tea because I choose to live a happy life and not be a wretched masochist.”

He sits down and sips his tea with a smile.

“Thanks,” I reply.

He notices the papers and says, “Have you gotten any more reports from Agust?”

“Not today.”

“Hm.”

“Maybe I have made too many enemies for it to be realistic anymore for me to know why someone would want revenge,” I wonder.

Sylvain looks thoughtfully at the report. “Maybe we will never know.”

“I need to know.”

He finishes his scone and empties his cup of tea. “Come with me,” he says, getting to his feet.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere new.”

I follow him as he leaves the house and heads over to the stable.

“It will be a long time before we ever go back to the Lupine Trail,” he says. “So we should find a new place to call our own. There’s some hills east of here. Let’s look for a good trail.”

A ride sounds like a decent way to take my mind off the investigation, so I saddle my horse and we set out together eastwards, skirting around the town until we are in the vast, grassy hills outlying it.

We pass by some farmlands and settlements until we are left alone in the quiet, windy expanse of trees and grass and sky. It isn’t the same as the woodland trail, where the towering pines created a private, hidden world of our own to escape from reality into. But these hills are beautiful in their way and being out in nature of any kind is soothing.

“I’m not made for cities,” I say. “They’re too crowded, even the small ones. It’s easier to be myself out here.”

“That’s why I wanted to come here. I like you when you are in your natural habitat. You seem happier,” Sylvain replies.

In a dell between two hills, we find a stream and stop to let our horses drink. 

Sylvain lies down on a patch of grass and crosses his arms under his head, closing his eyes. But I am too wound up to rest. After pacing around for a few minutes, I sit down next to him and anxiously rip up blades of grass.

“You still haven’t learned how to relax, have you?” Sylvain says without opening his eyes.

When I don’t reply, he adds, “I hoped I might cure your insomnia, but I know you’ve been sneaking out of bed every night to go pace around the house. You’re still not sleeping?”

“I’ve gotten a few hours each night. That’s an improvement,” I answer.

“Have I not been talking at you enough to exhaust you?”

“Oh no, you talk plenty. I never get a moment’s peace. I guess whatever is broken just isn’t so easily fixed.”

“How can I help?” he asks.

“It’s not your problem. Don’t worry about it.”

But when has telling Sylvain not to worry every made any damn difference?

He gets up and walks over to his saddlebag, returning with two books and a pen. He hands a book to me and says, “Keep your mind busy. It helps.”

Opening it up to the first chapter, I see that it is a text on methods of weapon crafting through the ages, filled with diagrams and illustrations.

“I’ve never seen this before. Where did you get it?”

“I, uh, acquired it from Dimitri’s library. I thought you might like it,” he says.

“You stole it from the royal archives?”

“Is it really stealing when it’s from a friend?”

I look at him suspiciously. “How many things have you ‘acquired’ from me?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re the one who stole my favorite jacket, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It was you! Give it back.”

“I can’t. Sorry. It was too tight in the shoulders so I gave it to Ashe.”

“What?”

“I couldn’t exactly give it back to you and admit I took it!”

“Why would Ashe accept stolen goods?”

“He didn’t know. I just told him it was too small for me. Besides, he can’t afford nice things like that. He was really touched. You should be happy for him.”

“Good lord. You are the worst!”

“That’s rich coming from the royal heirloom sword thief!”

“Hmph.”

I return my attention to reading, both resentful and grateful. It is an extremely interesting book. Hopefully Dimitri doesn’t notice it went missing.

As I read, Sylvain opens up a notebook and sketches something. I sneak a glance at it and see that he is drawing me.

“You’ve got my nose wrong,” I say.

“I did not.”

“It doesn’t even look like me.”

Sylvain grabs my chin, turning my face towards him and staring at my nose. “You’re right,” he says. “I also shouldn’t have drawn you smiling. It doesn’t suit you.”

I scowl at him but after a second I can’t help but laugh. Sylvain smiles, his eyes lighting up in delight.

He starts to let go of me then stops, cupping my cheek in his hand instead. His gaze moves to my lips and I hold my breath. Even after a few days, it still feels unreal when he kisses me and even the anxiety it provokes is exciting in a way. I’ve found, quite embarrassingly, that I can’t get enough of it.

He leans in until his lips are an inch from mine and my impatience gets the better of me. Setting the book down, I tackle him onto the grass.

“You smudged my drawing!” he protests.

“It was shit anyways. Shut up and kiss me.”

He laughs and wraps his arms around me as he kisses me. Without thinking, I sit up and take my shirt off, throwing it to the side. Sylvain runs his hands longingly across my bare skin and I reach down to unbuckle his belt. He looks up at me with wide eyes.

“What?” I ask.

“I just… I thought you preferred to take it slow.”

“It’s been a week! This is getting absurd! How fucking slow do you expect me to take it? I’m getting sick of kissing your stupid face.”

“I don’t know! I thought…”

“You usually sleep with someone immediately. What’s going on? I’ve been waiting for you to make a move, but you just keep innocently kissing me. Do you not want me? Is that it? Are you regretting all this?” I ask, silently cursing myself as I feel my face flush.

“You think I don’t want you?” Sylvain laughs in disbelief. “Of course I want you! But I’m terrified of messing this up. I was scared that if I rushed you and you thought I was only after your body, you would-”

I interrupt him by kissing him fiercely, my tongue in his mouth and my hand sliding up his thigh. Sylvain stops me after a moment to unbutton his shirt. His indecision is gone, replaced by a look of excitement that makes my heart pound.

But as he yanks off his shirt, the sight of the scars on his chest takes me out of the moment as guilt aches inside me.

“Stop,” he says, grabbing my hips and moving me off of him and onto my back. He kisses my neck in a way that makes me forget about everything and focus only on the rush of nervousness and arousal provoked by his lips on my skin and his hand slipping under the waistband of my pants.

He pauses and leans his forehead against mine, his breath hot on my lips. As he feels me growing hard in his hand, he whispers, “You have no idea how much I have wanted you.”

I don’t know how to reply so I just kick off my boots and tug off the rest of my clothes. As he kisses his way across my body, my breath races and I tangle my fingers in his hair, closing my eyes in anticipation. I gasp as he starts to go down on me and after a minute, I have to clamp my hand over my mouth to silence a groan.

He reaches up and grabs my wrist, moving my hand away. And when I moan again, louder this time, he continues more passionately.

My self-consciousness fades away and I stop worrying and thinking, letting myself just enjoy the incredible feeling. Oh goddess, he knows all too well what to do with his lips and tongue. I’ve always wondered what it would be like with him. I’ve imagined it countless times but still no fantasy could have come close to the way this-

“Oh fuck,” I swear breathlessly. “Fuck…”

I glance down to see his big brown eyes watching me and the bright look of satisfaction in them just might be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

He slows down a bit to tease me and I groan. I hold out as long as I can, but every minute the heat swelling through my body and the aching desire to feel him go deeper makes it harder to be patient. Finally I put my hand behind his head and urge him to stop tormenting me.

After one more everlasting minute, he gives in and takes me back all the way in his mouth, his tongue doing maddening things to me. He fucks me harder and harder until I am swearing again and gasping for breath. 

My body seizes up with the euphoric release of an orgasm and he keeps going until it has run its course, then he swallows and pulls back, kissing my thighs and hips with a pleased hum.

I sit up and plant my hands on the ground, leaning back and catching my breath.

Sylvain moves over to sit beside me and to my relief, he doesn’t speak, because I have no idea what to say. 

I reach for my clothes, but he snatches them up and throws them out of reach. “Don’t you dare. I haven’t spent all these years staring at your ass in those tight pants only to have you put them back on as soon as I get you out of them.”

I open my mouth to reply, but he kisses me again. Then he jumps up and walks over to his saddlebag, pulling out a bottle of wine.

He uncorks it as he brings it back and takes a long drink, then holds it out to me. I grab the bottle and set it to the side, staring at him intently.

“Take off your clothes and get on your back,” I tell him.

“Oh my.”

“Shut up.”

I give him everything I’ve got and after I am done with him, he sits up with a blissfully stunned expression on his lips and says, “Damn, Fee.”

“Why the fuck do you look so surprised?” I demand angrily.

“I’m not surprised. I just didn’t know whether or not you had much exper-”

“I will kill you if you finish that sentence or follow it with any kind of question on my sex life.”

He holds up his hands and says, “Alright, alright. Don’t kill me.”

I pick up the bottle wine and we take turns drinking it. Stealing glances at his soft, hazy smile every so often, I can’t help but feel pleased with myself. 

When the bottle is half-empty, Sylvain sets it down and kisses me deeply. He slips his hands into my hair and pulls it free of its knot. As it falls down around my shoulders, he stops and smiles at me.

I glare at him and start to tie it back up, but he takes my hands and says, “No, I like it like this.”

“Why? Because I look like a girl?”

“No, because you look relaxed and natural.”

I leave it be and he tucks it behind my ears, kissing me again.

“Can I ask you something?” I say when he stops.

“Go ahead.”

“I’ve never seen one of your flings last more than a month at best,” I say, forcing my tone to stay casual and unconcerned. “How long do you think this will last?”

He looks at me searchingly. “You think this is a fling?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?”

“I’ve been telling you I love you for years. Surely at this point it’s sunk in,” he says.

“That’s just something close friends say.”

“I know, but even if the terms of our friendship have changed, it doesn’t mean I’d ever stop loving you. You know that, right?”

This really is a conversation I never wanted to have with him or with anyone for that matter. But I have to say it. I have to confront this before too much time passes. 

You’ve faced down battles, Felix. Where is your courage? Damn coward.

“Look, I know you are pretty fast and loose with the word love. I imagine you’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve said it to get in bed with someone. But me - I’ve never said it to more than one or two people and only ever in a platonic way. I’ve never said it in a…”

Damn it, Felix! Spit it out.

“... a romantic sense.”

Sylvain brushes his fingers across my cheek and looks into my eyes with an earnest expression that I so rarely see on his face.

“I love you,” he says, “in every sense of the word.”

I stare back at him, too stunned to reply.

“Don’t leave a guy hanging,” he adds with a nervous laugh.

I kiss him and it gives me the courage to speak, although it is still difficult to find the right words. “I love you too, more than I know how to say. Goddess knows why but I’ve been… in love with you… for a long time. Years. I just never thought you…”

Sylvain smiles at me when I trail off awkwardly. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is it exactly that you love me?”

“Hell if I know. It doesn’t make any sense to me either. Why do you love me?”

“For one, because of this,” he says, running his hands across my naked body.

“Really? That’s it?”

“No that’s just a perk. Most of all I love you because I trust you.”

“You don’t trust anyone,” I say.

“I trust you. Absolutely.”

I smile slightly. “Is it because you assume I don’t want to have your crest babies?”

He laughs. “You don’t? I’m hurt.”

“The last thing this miserable world needs is more Sylvains.”

“Thanks.”

Right as I am relieved the conversation has turned more light-hearted, his sincere expression returns and he says, “As much as it is a shame to have waited till now to find this out, I’m glad you didn’t tell me sooner. When I was younger I just would have fucked it up.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself. You still might. Or I very well could.”

“No, I don’t think I will. Believe it or not, there are some things in life I take very, very seriously. And you’re one of them.”

“What are the others?” I ask.

“Choosing the right bottle of wine, maintaining my looks, throwing good parties.”

“What an honor. I rank up there with all that nonsense.”

“It’s only fair. I know I’ll always come second to your lifelong quest to be the best swordsman in Fódlan.”

“Well at least we know where we stand. Now can we talk about something else? Or not talk at all?” I ask.

“Unless you distract me with conversation, I’m going to start kissing you again,” he says.

“I suppose there are worse things.”


	10. Nightmare at Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix and Sylvain wake up to a terrible message left outside the training hall.

## 10 - NIGHTMARE AT DAWN

###  **Sylvain**

“What are you doing?” Felix asks as I pull on my clothes and boots and grab my lance.

“Learning to be a morning person,” I grumble.

He looks so delighted as I follow him to the training hall that dragging myself out of bed at this ungodly hour starts to feel worth it.

“Did you get any sleep?” I ask him.

“Enough,” he says.

Felix got an exceptionally early start today - the result of insomnia, I expect. But he seems steady enough on his feet and I set my worries aside. 

No one else is awake and there is barely any light in the sky yet. As we trudge across the courtyard, I rub the sleep from my eyes and remind myself to make coffee first next time. When we reach the door of the training hall, I am mid-yawn, rubbing my eyes, my brain feeling fuzzy. But Felix’s sharp gasp makes me jump and open my eyes.

“No,” I whisper. “How?”

“Fuck,” he says, looking ill. “Fuck!”

Nailed to the door of the training hall is the naked body of a girl. Her throat is cut, blood spilt down across her body to pool on the cobblestones below. Over her head, traced in her blood on the door, is a crest. But this time it isn’t the shield dragon. It’s the fissure dragon crest of House Gautier.

“He’s dead,” Felix says hysterically. “I killed him! They burned his body!”

“We need to get her down from there,” I say.

“No! Don’t touch her. I don’t want to carry another dead body back to Agust. Let him handle it. I’ll go send for him and have my guards sweep the area. You stay here and look for any signs of a break in.”

Felix dashes off and I am left standing beside the corpse, struggling against the urge to gag. This is the least disturbing body we have found yet, but the implications of it sicken me, as does the presence of my own cursed crest.

Was the man we encountered in the clearing not the murderer? Or worse yet, is someone copying him?

After a minute, a couple guards come running, swearing at the sight of the body.

“Don’t touch her,” I tell them. “Inspector Agust will need to examine the scene.”

We don’t have to wait long for Agust to come running with Felix, accompanied by a group of police officers.

“What the devil,” Agust says. 

I hang back with Felix as the inspector looks over the body and the mark on the door, then takes down the girl and covers her up with a coat. Stealing glances at Felix, I watch in fear as he fights more and more to keep his composure. But even if his face is calm and grave, his eyes have a wild, desperate look in them that scares me.

Agust fires questions at him and he responds automatically. Whenever he struggles for words, I answer for him. But no matter how many questions we answer, Agust’s furious expression and the suspicion in his tone does not ease.

I keep thinking of what Felix said to him. _“Maybe he thought he had gotten enough bloodshed during the war. But he grew bored.”_

I can tell those same words are in Agust’s mind too. 

Maybe the cutthroat warrior who came home to rule a dukedom grew bored. Maybe he missed his days in the war. He grew up with an obsession to fight and the kind of pragmatic personality that adapted well to violence. Maybe idleness drove him mad. He wouldn’t be the first soldier to witness the atrocities of battle and have no way to process them but to commit his own.

I only wonder what he imagines my role in these events to be. It can’t possibly be a coincidence that they started the day I arrived. Me singing Felix’s praises and defending his honor won’t mean a damn thing now that the crest left behind is mine. Agust has to assume I am part of this now.

It feels like a year has passed by the time the officers are done with the crime scene and have taken away the body of the girl. Patrols of soldiers are sent out to scour the forest and police officers head out to search the manor house and town.

“Stay here for now,” Agust tells us. “I will send reports on our progress. Don’t go anywhere. You hear me? Stay put.”

As we retreat into the house, I notice a group of soldiers and a few officers gather outside the doors. I doubt they are for our protection.

I take Felix’s hand and pull him back to his room. He yanks away from me and sits down on the bed, hanging his head in his hands and clutching the roots of his hair, swearing under his breath.

Sitting down beside him, I reach out to touch him then think better of it and withdraw my hand. I should say something, but my thoughts and emotions are in as much tumult as his.

“Why is he doing this?” Felix murmurs.

“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know!” I flinch as my voice comes out sharp with frustration and fear. But I can't control the emotions inside me, built up over a lifetime and now dragged excruciatingly to the forefront of my mind. “That crest is a curse! It dies with me! I only wish there was a way to kill it off sooner.”

Tears sting in my eyes and I swear, trying to wipe them away. But they just keep coming, unable to be contained behind the cool and calm mask I am normally so good at wearing.

I hide my face in my hands, silently cursing myself for choosing now of all times to break down. Felix is on the edge of losing it too. I should be the one keeping a clear head.

If it had been any other symbol painted on that door I would be fine. But the cursed sight of that crest has the power to unravel me like nothing else, tied as it is to all of the deepest angers and traumas within me.

I feel Felix’s arms around me and I withdraw deeper into myself, ashamed that he is seeing me like this.

"Sylvain," he murmurs, putting his hand behind my head and pulling it down to rest on his shoulder.

Burying my face in his neck, I wrestle to get my emotions under control and put that brave mask back on. 

Felix strokes my hair and kisses the top of my head.

Despite his tough manner, he is the one who expresses his emotions in private far easier than me. I have been the one holding him as he cries countless times over the years, from when we were kids to even in our adulthood.

But me… I've only ever broken down on him a few times and only in the darkest of circumstances. Each time I do, I expect him to tell me to stop and suck it up. And yet each time he just comforts me with surprising gentleness.

Felix will never be the kind of person to whom loving words come easily. But in moments like this, he speaks them through his actions so clearly it reassures me more than a hundred words could.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"I do," he says. "Don't apologize. We all have our demons."

Wrapping my arms around his waist, I hold onto him tightly until I regain my composure. As I pull away, he takes my face in his hands and kisses my forehead.

“We’re in this together,” he says. "We will figure this out before anyone else gets killed."

I nod. “What do we do now? What’s the first step?”

“Figure out how to get out of this damn house arrest,” he replies.

“To do what?”

“I want to see Asmer’s house. We read the report but we never went there. There wasn’t really a reason to with the police combing every inch of it. But now I want to see it for myself. Maybe they missed something.”

“Riding back into those woods isn’t going to look good, especially if we find another body in them.”

“It doesn’t matter. Agust already thinks it’s us. The only way we can disprove him is finding the real killer. Again.”

Oliver knocks on the door, saying, “Breakfast, sir?”

As I scrub the tears off my face and take a deep breath, Felix gets up and opens the door, taking the tray from him and thanking him.

“You hungry?” he asks me.

“Not even a little.”

He shoves a plate of eggs and bacon in my face and says, “Eat anyways. You need energy. Neither of us are getting sleep tonight.”

“Why?” I ask, forcing myself to take a bite of one of the strips of bacon.

“We need to wait for dark to do anything. Once the street lamps are out, we are going back to the woods. We’ll have to go on foot, but I know we can get around the guards. I know those trails much better than they do.”

“Promise me you won’t tie me up and leave me behind this time.”

“I promise. It didn’t do much good anyways. I should have figured you have experience breaking out of handcuffs.”

Once I finish eating as much as I can stand, I set the plate aside and lie down on the bed, closing my eyes. “We need to think.”

“I’m too angry to think,” Felix says. “I just want to hunt this bastard down and strangle him with my bare hands.”

“We already did that and it didn’t work. All the evidence pointed to Asmer being the killer and I think he was. But that means that there is something larger going on. It’s more than just one psychopath preying on people.”

Felix comes over and lies down beside me silently. I roll onto my side and study his expression. He might be calmer than me right now on the outside, but he is falling apart. He looks like he did when I first arrived - exhausted, haunted, dead-eyed.

“I need your help. We need to think this through,” I say.

He nods, still staring with unfocused eyes over my shoulder. 

Instead of pressuring him, I pull him into my arms and rest my forehead against his. For a while we stay like that without speaking and I feel the tension in his panicked body begin to ease. Then all of a sudden, Felix grabs my face and kisses me frantically.

Craving the comfort of intimacy, I kiss him back, putting my hand on his leg and lifting it to rest on my hip so my body is pressed as close to his as possible.

But after a minute, I can feel his shoulders shaking and his breathing growing ragged. I stop kissing him and he puts his hand over his mouth, closing his eyes. His panic doesn't take the form of tears like mine did, but I can tell it is unraveling him all the same.

Rubbing his back, I whisper, “What is it?”

But he doesn’t answer. He hides his face against my chest and I feel his anxious breaths racing against my skin. 

“Fee?”

“He wants you dead,” he says, pulling himself together and looking up at me. “It wasn’t me he is after. It’s you. I think he’s making that clear now.”

“I know,” I say quietly, struggling even more to keep my emotions under control.

Felix gives a bitter, breathless sort of laugh and says, “Fate has a cruel sense of humor. Some bastard comes out of nowhere to kill you, right as I finally have you back.”

“He’s not going to succeed, not as long as you’re here.”

“He very nearly did already. It wasn’t me who saved you. It was a lucky healing spell. You’d have died that day otherwise and there would have been nothing I could have done to save you.”

“Felix, listen to me,” I say. He doesn’t meet my eyes and I tip his chin up to look at me. “The weight of all this is not on your shoulders. Once in a while, I can save myself. And once in a while, I might even save you. So right now, don’t worry about me. I trust you and I trust myself. Let’s keep our focus on how we’re going to find this bastard.”

“I love you,” he says so quietly I can barely hear him. "I swear to you, if anyone tries to hurt you or take you from me, they will die. I'll do anything to keep you safe."

The pain in his eyes makes my heart ache and I brush my thumb across his lips, looking at him earnestly. “I love you too, more than you can ever know. Nothing can take you from me, nor me from you.”

My words seem to reassure him a little and the vulnerable look leaves his eyes. He moves out of my arms and sits up.

“Alright,” he says. “Let’s stop wasting time and start thinking.”

I exhale a long breath, forcing myself to calm down and clear my head. I sit up and wrap a blanket around our shoulders as we lean back against the headboard.

“What are you looking for at Asmer’s house?” I ask.

“Signs of someone communicating with him. I think he was hired.”

“Why?”

“The bodies they dug up in the clearing weren’t killed by poison and they didn’t have any symbols on them. He just killed them because he wanted to. He had to get the drug from somewhere; there were no signs of him making it in his house. His methods changed when he chose to target me.”

“That makes sense,” I reply. “So once he failed, whoever hired him hired someone else or took matters into his own hands. If it only took a week for him to find out Asmer failed and make other plans, then he must be close by. He’d have to live at least within a fifty mile radius or so. That means it’s not someone from the empire.”

“It’s someone in Faerghus,” Felix agrees. “But fifty or sixty miles doesn’t narrow it down much. Even Fhirdiad is within fifty miles.”

“You know what bothers me, though? If they want you dead, why not just kill you? Asmer could have killed you at any point during either of our trips to the clearing. Why didn’t he? And why did the person who hired him not just kill you once he found out Asmer’s game was over.”

“I guess he doesn’t want me dead.”

I think for a minute then say, “It made sense to leave the bodies in the woods because it got us to go off on our own to the clearing where we were vulnerable. If he wanted to draw us out of the city to kill us, he would leave more bodies in the woods. Leaving a body here in your house means he isn’t trying to draw you out. He’s trying to bring all this closer to you.”

“He doesn’t just want to kill me. He wants to drive me crazy,” Felix says. “Or maybe he is trying to discredit me to get my lands and title?”

“I don’t think it’s someone who wants your power. Greed doesn’t make people do things this dark. I think we need to stick with our original theory.” I glance at him sadly and say, “You and I both know how revenge can make someone go to such lengths out of grief and hatred.”

He nods. “But this is something even the rabid boar would not have done.”

“Only because he was never cruel to begin with. If someone had a natural bent to cruelty and was driven mad with anger the same way he was, they would be worse than him. It was only ever his underlying goodness that kept him from being truly evil.”

“Let’s not talk of him,” Felix says. “I promised myself I would forget those dark days.”

“I know. But it helps me figure out who this man is to consider the differences. What kept Dimitri from becoming like that was the people who loved him - Byleth, Dedue, Rodrigue, all of us. Let’s assume this person is seeking revenge the same way Dimitri did. He has to be cruel and cunning, but more than that, I reckon he is alone.”

“Where’s that list?” Felix asks.

I get up and dig through the papers on his desk until I find it and bring it back along with a pen. Felix looks it over with a frown.

“So he’s in Faerghus. We killed someone who was important enough to drive him to revenge, but he doesn’t have family left. He’s a loner. And he has enough money to hire killers.”

As Felix crosses off names, he sighs in frustration and says, “This still doesn’t make any sense! The last time we killed people was in the war! That was two years ago. Why would he wait until now?”

“Something was in his way until now?” I suggest.

“What? Money?” Felix says. “No, someone this determined wouldn’t let money stand in the way.”

“Maybe he was out of the country?”

Felix studies the list for several long minutes then says, “I know it has to be someone from the war, but it still doesn’t make sense for it to be anyone on this list.”

“Like you said, we haven’t killed anyone since. And we didn’t kill anyone before.”

With a growl, Felix throws the paper and pen to the side. “We’re not going to get anywhere talking ourselves in circles! He’s probably off murdering people as we speak!” He gets up and grabs his sword sheath, buckling it to his belt. “Fuck this. We’re getting out of here.”

“Wait!” I protest, jumping out of bed and running over to grab his arm. “You’ll play right into his hand if you rush out there and get us arrested for real! He doesn’t just want me dead, he wants you to be framed as a killer! He wants your reputation!”

Felix stops and stares at me like he had been slapped.

“What?” I ask.

“My reputation…” He sets down his sword and says, “As much as I try to forget Dimitri’s days as a rabid beast, I still remember some of the things he said. During one of his rants, he said once that whoever was behind Duscur, he would only kill them after he had killed their brothers and fathers because he wanted them to lose what they took from him. I remember it because as much as I despised him for being so out of control and obsessed, I couldn’t help but feel…”

“That you wanted the same?”

He nods and says, “The point of revenge isn’t to mete out justice on someone you think deserves to die. It’s to take from them what you lost. If they killed someone you love, you kill someone they love. If they took your lands, you take theirs.”

“And if you destroy their reputation, you destroy theirs,” I say, understanding what he is getting at.

Felix nods. “Time to make a new list.”


	11. Vigilante Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback to the year 1180 to a time when Sylvain and Felix once tried their hand at being vigilantes.

## 11 - VIGILANTE DAYS 

###  **Wyvern Moon, 1180**

###  **Sylvain**

“This is insane,” I muttered.

“Then go home,” Felix said.

“And let you do something stupid alone? Never. But I swear to Seiros, if you throw me to the dogs like you did with the royal sword, I will never speak to you again.”

“What a tragedy that would be,” he said.

We ducked into an alleyway off the street once we grew close to the edge of Sir Morcliff’s manor. Although the house of Morcliff didn’t rule over any lands like our houses did, Francis Morcliff was still one of the richest men in Fhirdiad and his manor was like a small castle. He could certainly afford to have our deaths covered up as tragic accidents if we were caught trespassing. 

And yet here we were like absolute idiots, about to sneak into his vaults to see if the legends were true and he did in fact have an ancient sword made of dragon bones, which Felix had become obsessed with. Mostly I was here just so we could get this over with and he would shut up. The entire week of our visit to the capitol, he had been going on and on about it.

“Dimitri’s going to be so jealous,” he whispered with a grin.

“And how exactly are you going to tell him the story without admitting you committed crimes? If he tells our parents, we’ll get expelled from Garreg Mach after less than a semester of being there.”

Felix shrugged. “I’ll think of something.”

We took off the cloth masks hiding our faces and huddled deeper into our coats to ward off the autumn chill.

“Where’s this girl of yours? Isn’t she supposed to be here by now? It’s nearly midnight,” Felix said.

“Be patient.”

“She’s not coming. We’ll have to find another way in.”

“She’ll be here,” I insisted. I couldn’t help but smile and add, “They always come back for more.”

Felix’s look of disgust made me laugh.

Sure enough, several minutes later we heard footsteps and Sona, one of Morcliff’s maids, appeared.

“Sylvie!” she said, running into my arms and kissing me passionately.

Felix coughed behind us and she stepped away from me. 

“I’m Sona,” she said, holding out her hand.

He shook it brusquely and said, “Felix.”

“I know,” she replied with a wink. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“What?” he said in alarm. “What have you heard?”

She laughed. “Only good things. Don’t worry.”

“Sona, my goddess, my everlasting love, my muse, tell me you are going to work miracles for us tonight,” I said, taking her hands and giving her my most charming smile.

“Anything for you, my love,” she answered. “Come with me.”

We put our masks back on and followed her to the manor. When she stopped to fish out her key to the back door, Felix poked me. I glanced over at him and he whispered with a snicker, “Sylvie?”

I glared daggers at him then returned my attention to Sona, making sure my eyes held nothing but adoration for her.

She led us through the servant’s rooms and passageways until we came to stairs leading down to a basement.

“The vaults are down here,” she whispered. “I can get you to the door but I don’t have a key to get inside. Can you really pick the lock?”

“I should be fine,” I replied.

“Are you a thief?” she said, arching an eyebrow at me with a slight smile.

“The only thing I have ever stolen is your heart,” I answered, tugging my mask down to give her a quick kiss. “I only know how to do this because once Felix locked his keys in his room and I had to break in to get them.”

I could practically feel him seething behind me in rage.

Sona laughed quietly and said, “I’ll be waiting for you in the broom closet we just passed by. Don’t take too long. I can guarantee you half an hour but after that I’m not sure.”

“We mean only to see the legendary weapon and then leave. We won’t touch anything, I promise.” I kissed her again and said, “You are a gift from the goddess, my love. My life would have neither meaning nor joy without you. Thank you.”

“Go,” she said, shoving me away. “I’ll see you later.”

“I owe you a favor. While you wait, start thinking of what you’d like me to do to make it up to you.”

“I know exactly what I want you to do,” she replied.

I winked at her and opened my mouth to reply, but Felix grabbed my arm and yanked me towards the stairs.

“I need to shower after listening to that filth,” he muttered.

“Did you have a better ticket into this place?” I asked. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Stop complaining.”

We followed Sona’s directions until we came to the right door. Then I pulled out my lockpicking tools and while Felix kept watch, I worked on breaking in.

“Hurry up, Sylvie,” he whispered.

“Don’t you dare call me that.”

Finally I got the lock open and we entered the vault. I could tell from the deep darkness and chill that it was huge but I couldn’t see the full extent of it until I summoned a small flame to my hand and held it out to illuminate the room.

I was going to make some quip about Professor Manuela being proud of my spell, but I was too overwhelmed by the opulence of the storeroom to speak. The room was filled with glass cases inside which gleamed treasures of every kind.

“There it is!” Felix whispered in excitement as we caught sight of a gilded weapons rack on one side of the room.

He raced over, beckoning for me to follow. I held up the fire spell as he examined each of the weapons. After a few minutes, he found the one he was looking for and reached out to pick it up off the rack.

“No touching!” I said.

“I just want to see if it’s real. I won’t break it, I promise.”

As he took the sword and slowly drew it from its sheath, I cursed under my breath. We were going to die. Morcliff was going to catch us, then the police would tell Rodrigue, then Rodrigue would have Felix expelled from Garreg Mach, then I would be forced to drop out in solidarity, then we would both get disowned from our houses and become travelling mercenaries, struggling to earn our bread with nothing but our good looks and swords.

Alright, so perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, that sounded rather fun.

“It’s a fake!” Felix whispered furiously. “It’s a fucking fake!”

“What? How can you tell? It’s not like you’ve ever seen dragon bone before.”

“But I’ve seen porcelain. It’s just polished and carved to look like bone! This thing would break if you so much as dropped it on the floor.”

“Then for fuck’s sake, don’t drop it! Put it back! Now!”

He huffed in frustration. “Fucking fraud.”

“Put it back! Let’s get out of here.”

Felix sheathed the sword resentfully and placed it back in its spot on the rack. “I wish there was a way to expose him for the lying bastard he is.”

“This is not a good enough reason to play at being vigilantes again,” I said.

“And yet it pisses me off more than the time we got Sir Elland arrested for stealing coin from the church.”

“The difference is that’s illegal. This isn’t. The police won’t give a damn.”

“I know,” he grumbled. “Come on, Sylvie, let’s go.”

“Say that one more time and I swear to-”

“You’ll what? Fight me? Good luck.”

“I’ll tell all the girls at Garreg Mach that you are looking for a wife.”

He looked at me in horror. “That’s just cruel.”

“Don’t call me Sylvie then.”

“Fine,” he said.

We headed back to the door and I extinguished the candle flame in my hand. Right as we stepped into the hall and locked the door behind us, we heard the heavy footsteps of a man coming from the stairs.

I looked at Felix in panic and he stared back wide-eyed for a second then grabbed my arm and took off at a run down the hall. It led to another descending staircase and I stopped, whispering, “We’re going to get lost if we just keep running! There won’t be a way out if we go further down.”

“We can hide until he goes away! If we go back, we get caught. Come on!” he hissed.

I gave in and followed him down the stairs, praying to the goddess that we didn’t get caught. I told her I would clean up my act, I would give up casual sex and I wouldn’t curse anymore if only she just got us out of this fiasco alive.

But who was I kidding? The goddess, if she even existed, had no reason to listen to me.

I had better start planning our lives as travelling mercenaries. We weren’t getting out of this without being arrested, expelled and disowned.

At the bottom of the stairs was another hall, but it didn’t have any rooms or other passageways branching off from it. It went on another thirty or forty feet until it dead-ended in a locked room.

“Hurry!” Felix whispered.

I started picking the lock, but my hands were shaking and I slipped right as I almost had it. Swallowing back my panic, I steadied my hands and focused harder. As we heard the footsteps drawing close to the stairs, I got it open and we slipped into the room.

I saw a closet of some kind in the back and ran towards it but as I reached it, I realized Felix was still frozen in place. I looked around and realized what I had missed in my dash to the closet.

There was a teenage girl in a scanty nightgown lying on the stone floor on the far side of the room, her ankles chained to a bolt in the floor. Felix ran over to her and tried to shake her awake but I knew from the look of shock on his face that she wasn’t asleep. She was dead.

The footsteps echoed outside the door and I grabbed Felix, hauling him over to the closet and closing the door to it as soon as we were huddled inside.

“She’s dead,” he whispered.

“Ssh! We’ll figure out what’s going on once we make it out of here alive,” I said.

Felix swore under his breath as the door opened and someone walked in. We couldn’t see him, but I could tell from the sound of his footsteps and breathing that it was a man. Then someone else followed him into the room.

“Why is she still here? Get her out of here!” Francis Morcliff demanded.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” a deep voice replied.

“Where is the new one? I thought she was to be delivered today.”

“She is being bathed and dressed at the moment, my lord. I will have her sent here shortly.”

“Hurry up. I don’t want to be kept waiting all night,” Morcliff said.

I heard the clink of chains and sounds of movement, then the servant man left the room, presumably carrying the body of the dead girl.

Morcliff lingered in the room and I heard shuffles of movement and the sound of items being moved as he puttered around.

Felix leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Kill him.”

“We can’t,” I whispered back.

“He’s going to rape someone.”

“We’re unarmed.”

“He’s outnumbered.”

I hesitated, wondering if Felix was right and we could take him in a fight. We absolutely had to do something. But we couldn’t leave to go get help without being seen. And if we waited here helplessly it would be too late.

Maybe a fight was our only option. But what were we supposed to do? Kill him like Felix said? With our bare hands? That was insane.

We would have to try to knock him out and tie him up or something. Then we could go to the police. And if they didn’t believe us, we could go to Dimitri. He would know what to do.

I felt Felix tense beside me and I knew he was about to attack. I steeled my nerves in preparation, heart pounding.

With a growl, Felix kicked down the door of the closet and ran at Morcliff like a bat out of hell. But before we could reach him, he whipped out a sword and said, “Come any closer and you die!”

I stepped to the side so I was standing between Morcliff and the door, desperately looking around the room for anything to use as a weapon.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Morcliff demanded.

I saw the chain in the corner of the room, now loose from its restraint. It was closer to Felix than me, so if I could distract Morcliff, maybe he could grab it. I was pretty certain he noticed it too. Nothing escaped Felix.

Sweating in fear underneath my hood and mask, I raised my hand and brought the fire to my palm again. This little candle flame was the only spell I could cast, but Morcliff didn’t know that.

“Lower your sword or I burn you to the ground,” I said in my best dark, commanding Dimitri impression.

Morcliff gave me a wary, examining look and I stepped closer, staring back at him furiously, trying to keep eye contact with him. If I could get him to step to the left, Felix would have his opening.

“How did you get in here?” Morcliff asked.

“I’m asking the questions right now,” I said, raising my hand slightly. “And right now my question is, do you want to lower that sword or do you want to die?”

“Your little fire spell can’t hurt me.”

“I wouldn’t gamble on that bet if I were you. Losing means you choke to death on the smoke from your own burning body. Now drop the sword!”

I stepped to the side, starting to circle him like swordsmen do when preparing for a fight. Morcliff put at least some stock in my bluff, because he followed suit. 

“You’ll kill me anyways,” he said.

“Why would I kill my most valuable friend?” I said. “No, I intend to walk out of here a richer man. For a small sum of money, I will leave without touching a hair on your head and will live the rest of my days completely silent on what I have found here. I know you are not adverse to paying such sums of money to be able to live your life without judgment. However, if you prefer to use your sword instead of your wits, you will die right here and now. I’d prefer money, but I’ll settle for your corpse if I have to.”

Two more steps. One more. 

Finally!

Felix sprang into action, diving past Morcliff and grabbing the chain. Morcliff reacted quicker than I expected and swung at him, but Felix was quicker still. He dodged out of the way and struck at Morcliff with the chain, causing him to step backwards out of its reach.

I seized the moment and tackled Morcliff from behind, wrapping my arm around his throat to choke him and clawing at his eyes with my other hand. He screamed and swung blindly at Felix, who evaded the strike and slammed the heavy chain against Morcliff’s wrists, knocking the sword from him.

Together, we tackled him to the ground and bound his hands and feet. 

“I’ll pay you what you want!” Morcliff said. “How much are you asking for? You can name any price you want.”

Felix kicked him onto his back and I saw the blood streaming across his face from where I had scratched his eyes. I hadn’t gouged them out but the sight still sickened me and I looked down at my hands to see his blood smeared on my fingers.

“Shut up,” Felix growled, ripping a strip of cloth from Morcliff’s shirt and gagging him. “Your soul burning in hell is the only payment I want.”

He glanced up at me and the look of righteous victory in his eyes was captivating. I hoped someday I would be as brave and good as Felix. He would have taken this fight on even if I hadn’t been here to back him up. 

I walked to the door and after picking up Morcliff’s sword, Felix followed me. Once we were in the hallway and had closed the door to the chamber behind us, he asked, “What do we do now? Go to the police?”

“How do we explain how we found out what we know?” I asked. “No, we need to find the girl who is still alive. She can testify against Morcliff. She must have been kidnapped or something.”

Felix nodded and we ran up the stairs and down the halls until we came to the broom closet where Sona was waiting. 

She noticed the sword in Felix’s hands and said, “What happened?”

I told her everything and said, “Are there guest chambers somewhere? We need to find her.”

“We were told to clean up an empty room earlier, but not told why,” she said, a stunned look on her face. “I’ll take you there. Come.”

Her courage impressed me as she led us unhesitatingly through the manor house. But before we even got to the guest room, we ran into a tall, broad-shouldered man carrying a tied-up girl in his arms.

I pushed Sona behind me and said, “Go! Run!”

As she took off, Felix raised his sword and told the man, “Set her down.”

“Who are you?” the man asked.

“Put her down,” Felix repeated.

The man slowly lowered the girl to the floor. But the second he let go of her, he snapped his hand up and fired a spell at us. We both tried to dodge out of the way, but the fire blast singed the edge of my coat, eating through it to my skin. As I staggered back, Felix lunged forward to strike at the man.

He took a fire spell full force to the chest and yelled in pain, but didn’t stop. The tip of his sword caught the man’s arm, slicing deeply into his skin. The strike knocked him off balance and I leapt over the girl and tackled the man to the floor. Felix was on top of him also in seconds.

The man struggled and managed to wrench his hand up, grabbing my arm and sending a fire spell straight into my skin. I screamed, hearing the hiss of my burning flesh and feeling a wave of agony course from it.

Felix slammed the hilt of the sword into the man’s head, knocking him unconscious, and the fire spell mercifully broke.

Once he was sure the man was out, Felix sagged back against the wall, gasping for breath. Through the tattered gaps in his shirt, I could see the vicious burns on his skin.

Desperately trying to ignore the pain searing through my arm, I crawled over to the girl and untied her wrists and ankles. She sat up and looked at us with wide, terrified eyes.

“Are you hurt?” I asked and she shook her head.

“Did you come here to rescue me?” she asked.

“Yes. Were you kidnapped by Morcliff?”

“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “I just… I was out running an errand and then suddenly I woke up here. I think he drugged me. I had the most horrible nightmares while I was unconscious.”

The girl moved over to Felix and looked at his wound. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. 

“I’m fine.” He hauled himself to his feet and held out his hand to help her up. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Gwyn.”

“I’m Felix and this is Sylvain,” he answered. “We’re going to get you out of here but we need your help. You need to come with us to the police. If you come with us to back up our claims about him, they will listen to us.”

“What claims?”

Felix glanced at me and I told Gwyn all that we found out, for even though I knew it would disturb her to know what might have happened to her, I also felt that she deserved the truth. She took the news calmly, a look of determination growing in her eyes.

“We have to take him down,” she said. “But what if our testimonies aren’t enough? He’s rich and powerful. He could get out of this. We should kill Morcliff and be done with it. We can’t risk him escaping justice. Who knows how many girls he has already raped and killed? We know at least one and that I was about to be a second.”

I looked at Gwyn in surprise, for although obviously very brave, she couldn’t be older than fifteen or sixteen. “Kill him?”

“Easy for you to object,” she said coldly. “You’re not a woman. You were never going to end up one of his victims.”

As we had been talking, Felix had been busy binding the man’s wrists and ankles so he could not come after us once he regained consciousness. As he finished up, he looked at me and said, “She’s right.”

I knew that, as the oldest, they were both looking to me to help make the decision. But I was paralyzed by all the possible consequences of either action.

“I’m not above bloodying my blade to stop someone like Morcliff. But I also know that we have powerful people who will listen to us and who can help bring him to justice.” I met Gwyn’s fierce gaze and said, “I offer you a deal: if the police don’t act on our information and arrest Morcliff, we will return and kill him. You have my word. I won’t let him get away with this.”

“My word as well,” Felix said.

Gwyn nodded and didn’t argue any further. She was shaky on her feet but Felix kept hold of her arm to steady her and we made our way as quickly as possible out of the manor house. When we were safely outside its gates, I looked at Felix and said, “Go with her to the police headquarters. You need to report this as soon as possible so that they will find the dead girl’s body when they search Morcliff’s house. I’m going to go get Dimitri.”

Felix hesitated then said, “Don’t tell Rodrigue.”

“I have to.”

“Don’t!”

“Fine. Just Dimitri.”

I took off my jacket and handed it to Gwyn. “I’m sorry the sleeve is burnt but it will serve you better in the cold than that nightgown.”

She thanked me and slipped into it, then set out down the street with Felix.

By the time I made it to the palace, I was dizzy from the pain of my burnt arm, my whole body soaked in a cold sweat. I stumbled in and the servants cried out in alarm.

“I’m fine! Leave me be,” I said, racing past them towards the stairs. I ran through the halls of the palace until I came to Dimitri’s room and pounded frantically on the door.

“It is past midnight, Sylvain. What is-” he began then saw my arm.

“Let me call a healer!” he said urgently. “What happened to you?”

“There’s no time! Listen to me. I need your help. Get dressed.”

I shoved past him into his room and threw clothes at him while telling him all that happened. My faith in Dimitri had not been misplaced. Within minutes the two of us were running to the palace stables, leaping into the saddles of horses and galloping to the police headquarters. 

Dimitri in a fit of noble and virtuous rage was a glorious thing to behold and as soon as we walked into the building, I knew I was right to bring him here. The officers jumped up from their desks to greet us with looks of astonishment and consternation.

“Where is the young girl who just came in? I must speak with the inspector in charge of her case,” Dimitri said.

“No inspector has spoken with them yet,” a man replied nervously.

“Then get me your chief inspector,” Dimitri ordered. “Immediately!”

“Yes, my prince. At once.”

Another officer led us down the hall and as we grew near to a questioning room, I heard Felix’s raised voice coming from within.

“Why am I wasting time with you? Get me a fucking inspector! Now! We don’t have time to sit on our hands and let him dispose of all the evidence! Get your useless ass up and-”

He stopped yelling when we opened the door and walked in.

“The chief inspector is on his way,” Dimitri told him, then turned to the policeman. “Go fetch a healer immediately. My friends are wounded.”

The officer bowed and rushed away, leaving the four of us alone. I hoped for the chief inspector’s sake that he made it here within a few minutes because Dimitri looked like he would burn the place to the ground if they made him wait.

Gwyn stared up at him with big, startled eyes. “Prince Dimitri?”

He offered her a short bow of respect and said in that ridiculously earnest voice of his, “I am truly sorry for all you have suffered today. I will not rest until I have ensured that this monster is brought to justice. You have my word.”

“Thank you,” she said. But she glanced at Felix quickly after with a questioning look to which he nodded.

If for some reason Dimitri was not able to keep his promise and Morcliffe did not end up in prison, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Felix would keep ours and Morcliff would end up dead. One way or another, he would not get away with this.

I hung back and watched as Felix spoke with Dimitri and Gwyn, a warm, proud feeling in my heart despite the pain and horror of the night. Gwyn was leaning against Felix and even though I knew it made him uncomfortable, he had his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. The furious determination in his grim expression was a striking contrast to the gentleness of his attempt to reassure Gwyn that it made me love him all the more.

So many times over the years, I have caught people talking behind Felix’s back about him, calling him heartless or mean or cold. Every time I defended him or told them to fuck off. It was infuriating that they either didn’t know or were blind to this side of him, that they focused only on his words and not his actions.

If they could see him now in this heroic moment they would understand why I admired him so much. It wasn’t just that he was the best person I knew. It was that he made me a better version of myself too, so much stronger and braver than I would be on my own.


	12. Reputation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in the present day, Felix and Sylvain form a new theory of who is behind the vicious murders but before they can start investigating, matters are complicated.

## 12 - REPUTATION

###  **Great Tree Moon, 1188**

###  **Felix**

“It can’t be him,” I reply. “He died in prison.”

“He did. But he had a son. He was a little older than us at the time. When the Morcliff house fell into disgrace, he was shipped off to some distant relative in the Alliance, I think,” Sylvain says.

“Why would it be the son? You only avenge people you love. You think that raping, murdering pig would have been the kind of father to inspire love and respect in his child? There’s no way that kid would grieve his father’s death after he learned what he had been doing for years. And if he somehow found out we were involved in the investigation, he is likely grateful to us.”

“We destroyed Francis Morcliff’s life, his entire reputation, fortune and legacy to the point where he hung himself in prison rather than deal with the shame,” Sylvain insists. “And his son fits the idea we have of this killer.”

“Dimitri made them keep our names out of the investigation reports. He would have no way of knowing it was us.”

Sylvain hesitates, then says, “Sona knew who we were.”

“Was she close with the son?”

“I don’t know. She mentioned him a few times, I think. It’s hard to remember. It was so long ago. But she was… well, she had very similar morals to me.”

“You’re saying she slept around?”

“I’m saying it’s not out of the question she could have been friendly with him.”

“Even if this long-shot theory of yours is true, it doesn’t explain the time gap. Even waiting two years from the war to now doesn’t make sense. Waiting eight?”

“Just keep his name on the list until we rule it out. I think he is our best guess.”

“Fine,” I say.

I set the list to the side with a sigh and rub my forehead, my relatively sleepless night starting to catch up with me in the form of a pounding headache and a shaky feeling in my body.

Sylvain notices and gets up and pours me a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. He brings it back and hands it to me. “Sleep for a few hours. We can set out for the woods at eight.”

“Every hour we waste sitting here gives him time to kill again,” I say. “We should try to go now.”

“You’re the one who told me we need to keep our strength up. Take your own advice.”

“Should we tell Agust of our suspicions?”

“If we can find a shred of evidence to support them. For now, we have nothing but speculation. And I think telling him that we used to moonlight as vigilantes as kids won’t really help our case.”

I nod and lie down, closing my eyes and willing the headache to go away. Sylvain settles down behind me, wrapping his arm around my waist and leaning his forehead against the back of my neck. The soft feeling of his breath on my skin and the warmth of his body next to mine soothes me enough that I can relax.

I don’t manage to sleep, but resting restores at least a little of my energy and by the time the clock strikes seven, I feel alive enough to face the night that lies before us.

Sylvain fell asleep a couple hours ago and I carefully extricate myself from his arms. I let him sleep a little while longer while I get ready. When it comes time to wake him, I hesitate, lying down next to him. I reach out and tuck a strand of hair out of his eyes, brushing my fingertips across his cheek. 

Damn that stupid handsome face I have never been able to get out of my mind. I tried so hard to make myself want someone else, but I always failed. I knew long ago that I was stuck with him for good even though I thought I would never have him in the way I wanted.

_“Why is it exactly that you love me?”_

I know I should have given him a serious answer, but how the hell am I supposed to put into words feelings that have been building all these years? It would be easy to explain why I am attracted to him - his tall, muscular body, his charming smile and sparkling eyes. Everyone is attracted to Sylvain. I’m sure he has heard a thousand times how handsome he is. He doesn’t need some awkward attempt on my part to express it.

But love?

He didn’t just ask me to goad me into saying something sappy for his amusement. No, I heard the uncertainty in his voice, even if he was trying to hide it.

He truly doesn’t understand. And if I am ever going to settle his doubts, I have to find a way to tell him. He has lived his whole life with distrust towards any one who says they love him. I’ll be damned if I let him feel that same insecurity around me.

I decide to think it over and gather my courage so I can tell him sometime. But the idea of riding into those cursed woods soon hits me and I realize that I shouldn't put this off.

What was that thing people would say during the war? _“Don’t leave anything for a tomorrow that you might not have.”_

I would always give that saying a contemptuous snort and reply that I had no intention of dying tomorrow in battle. But I also never had important things like this that I fear not having a chance to do.

No. I have to get this over with right now so it isn’t lingering around in the back of my head distracting me tonight when I need to be sharp and focused.

“Sylvain,” I say, jostling his shoulder.

“What?” he mumbles, blinking his eyes open.

“Wake up. We need to talk.”

“Okay.” He sits up and rubs his eyes with a yawn. “What is it?”

Fuck. I didn’t plan what to say. I just went for it. Damn it, Felix, you idiot!

“Listen and don’t interrupt and for the love of Seiros, don’t make fun of me,” I say. “If you make some stupid joke about this, I’m going to revoke everything I’m about to say and leave you. Understood?”

He looks at me in consternation and nods.

“You asked me why I loved you yesterday and I didn’t answer you. Well, here you go,” I continue, boldly forging through my self-consciousness and muddled thoughts. “When we were kids, I loved you because you spent time with me. You poked fun at me, but you never made fun of me. You just made me feel happy. Then when we were teenagers and Duscur happened, I lashed out at everyone and yet you didn’t leave. You know that event changed me permanently. The others kept pressuring me to go back to who I was before, but you just took it in stride and loved me all the same. You and I couldn't be more different, but somehow I felt like we understood each other.”

I pause for a second, knowing this whole speech is already five times longer than I wanted it to be and yet I am nowhere near done. I’ve kept my eyes trained down on the sheets, avoiding Sylvain’s gaze, but now I glance up at him and the serious look on his face encourages me to keep going. He isn’t laughing at me. He is just listening.

“When I came back from being a squire and met up with you at Garreg Mach after being apart for a while, I felt like I was meeting an entirely new person. I don’t know…. you just- you grew up in that interim and I did too. The realization that I was attracted to you felt like I’d been kicked in the face by a horse. Of course it seemed ridiculous to wonder if you felt the same. I knew I wasn’t a particularly lovable person. I was just grateful that you still wanted to be friends with me. I did despise you for being even more of a frivolous idiot than you used to be, but when the war started and you started acting like a man, I realized that…”

When I trail off, Sylvain waits for a few moments then says in a voice thick with emotion, “Realized what?”

“That I could rely on you,” I say. “So that’s it. That’s why I love you. You are the one person I can trust to never give up on me, even when I’m a complete ass. There are plenty of people who are stronger than you, but none whose kindness and loyalty and courageous fucking stupidity I trust more.”

Sylvain nods, at a loss for words for once. I watch him anxiously until he gathers his thoughts and speaks.

“I’m glad you told me,” he says. “It didn’t make much sense to me that you would love me. I’ve always admired you - hero-worshipped you a little too, I think. But I didn’t think you had much respect for me.”

“I have a lot of respect for you,” I answer.

He smiles and leans forward to slip his hand behind my neck and kiss me. “Thank you,” he whispers against my lips. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

I pull away and get out of bed. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t completely fuck it up. That is the only time I am spouting off emotional drivel like that. It will have to last you for the rest of your life.”

“I’ll need a repeat once a year to stay wildly in love with you,” he says.

“Every ten.”

“Every three.”

“Every five.”

“Deal. But I expect there to be candles and roses next time and for you to at least brush your hair or something first.”

“Fuck you.”

“I expect that too,” he says.

He climbs out of bed and the smile fades from his face. After he gets dressed, he walks over to me and says, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes. You?”

He nods. “Your words lifted my spirits. I feel ready to face anything now. So let’s go.”

As embarrassing as it was to have to say all that romantic bullshit, I am glad I did. I am a fairly predictable person. It’s not often I get to surprise Sylvain. And his strong, determined expression is such a change from how distraught and hopeless he looked this morning. It was good that I chose to tell him all that right now even if it was uncomfortable.

We strap on our weapons and head for the door but the sound of footsteps in the hall makes me stop. 

“Someone’s coming. Soldiers. I hear armor,” I whisper.

“Take off your weapons and cloak. Hurry!” Sylvain says, quickly stowing his spear under the bed and grabbing my sword sheath that I throw him. 

I leave the knife strapped to my thigh and shift my jacket to cover it. 

“They must just be here to report to us,” I say.

“With an armed guard?” he says. “What do we do if they try to arrest us? Run?”

But I don’t have time to decide before a sharp knock sounds on the door.

Sylvain comes over to my side and I open the door, swallowing back my nervousness and forcing my expression to be blank and impassive.

Standing in the hall are three police officers and five soldiers led by Inspector Agust.

“Do you have a report for me, Inspector?” I ask.

He nods at two of the soldiers and they step forward, swords drawn but lowered.

“I have a warrant for your arrest, Lord Fraldarius, and for yours, Margrave Gautier,” he says.

“On what grounds?” I ask.

“Witness testimonies and enough evidence to detain you by law for questioning,” he says. “I’m sorry, my lord. I trust you shall comply.”

Sylvain glances at me questioningly but I give him a look that says _‘no.’_

I am not going to kill my own citizens. I can break out of a jail if necessary, but I won’t cut down people in my employ to pointlessly try to flee.

“We will comply, but I expect an explanation, Inspector. You don’t have time to waste corralling the wrong suspects with a murderer on the loose,” I answer.

The police officers hold out metal handcuffs but I shake my head. 

“We will go willingly,” I say.

“I’m afraid I must insist, Lord Fraldarius. You are a dangerous man and my respect for your skill necessitates I take no chances,” Agust says.

I stiffen furiously but allow them to cuff my wrists behind my back. Sylvain does the same, although his jaw is clenched and I can see the anger and fear behind his calm expression.

My servants are gathered nervously watching as we are led away by the officers. To my relief some of them try to protest that Agust is making a mistake, but others look less convinced. 

It is a tense and humiliating walk to the police headquarters and my mind races with theories as to how Agust could have any evidence worth this daring arrest. It is no easy thing to accuse his duke of such horrific crimes. He would not be doing so simply because Sylvain and I were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Whoever is behind this must have moved on from hiring killers to hiring witnesses. We either figure this out from a jail cell or break out and chase our farfetched theories until we bring the real killer in alive. We can’t afford to drag in another dead body and claim it was the killer.

When finally we are free of the watching eyes of citizens and into the headquarters, we are escorted to a cell in the back of the building. But Agust does not remove our cuffs.

“Take these things off. We are here for questioning not imprisonment,” I demand.

“No chances,” Agust says again. “My apologies.”

He closes the cell door behind him.

“Come back here!” I order. “Ask your questions! Don’t leave us here to rot like common criminals.”

“You will be here for some time, my lord. Questions will come later,” he says as he walks away.

Once we are alone, Sylvain’s composure finally slips. “Fuck!” he curses, struggling against the cuffs. “We don’t have time for this!”

I sit down on the bench and try to restrain my anger enough to speak quietly. “We do. He’s not going to murder someone while we are sitting here with the most airtight alibi possible. As long as we are in here, people are safe.”

“Does it matter?” Sylvain says. “Even once we are exonerated, there will still be the fact that there was ever enough suspicion in the first place to arrest us! Half the town saw us hauled in here. That kind of talk isn’t going to die down easily. And it will spread. Think about this, Felix! We are the two most powerful houses. If this gets any more serious, it could destabilize all of Faerghus.”

“I understand that!” I snap. “But what would you have had me do? Kill my own officers?”

He sits down next to me and sighs. “I know. You made the right decision. I just…”

“We’re fucked.”

“Indeed.”


	13. Lockdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hours pass and still Sylvain and Felix remain locked up in a jail cell without being questioned. But when an unexpected visitor shows up, they have a chance to resume their investigation and discover something truly unsettling.

## 13 - LOCKDOWN

###  **Sylvain**

Hour one: Felix is silent, staring down at the floor with his thinking frown on. I try to engage him in conversation. I am not successful.

Hour two: Felix hasn’t moved still. 

“You alive, buddy?” I ask.

“Shut up.”

Hour three: Are they going to feed us?

Hour four: No, they are not going to feed us. I try yelling but I don’t think there is even anyone here. I think they just left us to rot. Maybe that means they are still investigating? That is a good thing, surely. It means we aren’t the only suspects. Or are they just trying to starve and madden us enough that we will break and confess? Are they allowed to treat nobility this way?

Hour five: I am starting to abandon hope. Felix notices and breaks out of his daze enough to comfort me. He tries to kiss me but it is pretty clumsy with his hands bound behind his back. He knocks his forehead into mine and curses. After some fumbling around, I manage to kiss him and the taste of his mouth and feeling of his warm breath helps steady and strengthen my spirit. Thank the goddess for Felix. 

Hour six: I can’t feel my hands. Felix has gone silent again. Spooky silent.

Hour seven: Theorizing begins half-heartedly then dies out. Felix is shaking with anger. I wonder if it is possible for him to grow so full of rage he can break through the metal cuffs. I would not put it past him. It’s dangerous to try to tie a cat up. Their tiny bodies can’t safely contain strong amounts of rage.

Hour eight: I keep feebly attempting to crack jokes. Felix threatens to strangle me. I am worried he might actually be able to do it even with his hands behind his back. I can’t help it, though. This is how I handle anxiety.

Hour nine: I am going out of my mind with the boredom and worry and anger. Felix has not spoken in an eternity and is completely unresponsive. He has that look about him that he did when I arrived here, but worse. I don’t know where his mind is but I doubt it is reality. How many hours has he gone now without sleep? Twenty-five? Thirty? I am fairly exhausted myself. I can’t imagine how worn out he is, and yet his manic energy keeps him on his feet, wound tight as a spring.

“Fee…”

He doesn’t acknowledge me, continuing to pace back and forth until I am about ready to lose it if he takes another step.

Jumping to my feet, I walk over so that when he turns on his heel he comes face to face with me. 

“For the love of Seiros, stop,” I say. “Talk to me.”

“Get out of my way,” he growls.

“What are you trying to do? Dig us out by wearing a trench into the floor with your feet?”

“I’m trying to think!” he yells in my face, causing me to stagger back.

What the hell?

He winces. “I’m sorry.”

I lean up against the bars and close my eyes, a headache pounding in my forehead. “This is insane. What was the point of arresting us for questioning if they aren’t even going to question us?”

Felix walks over and leans against me, tucking his head in the crook of my neck. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I should have made you go home rather than get caught up in all this. I worry that perhaps my reputation was always heading here, that I am too fucked up in the head to avoid this forever. But I could have spared you the shame of being associated with these matters.”

I kiss the top of his head. “If I had, I would never have found out that you loved me. That is worth all of this to me.”

He lifts his head to look at me and I lean down to press my lips against his - gently at first until all of my pent up emotion rushes out and I kiss him hard and desperately.

Pulling back and panting for breath, he stares up at me and I see tears of frustration in his eyes.

He staggers away with a hoarse cry and resumes his pacing. “I’m going out of my mind! We have to get out of here! We are useless in here!”

My body feels numb and shaky, but I brace myself and kick at the bars. “Hey! HEY!”

No answer.

“I DEMAND TO SPEAK WITH SOMEONE!” I roar, slamming my boot into the bars over and over again until I break a toe and yelp in pain.

The sound of distant voices catches my attention and I hold my breath, listening. Felix stumbles over to me, his whole body tensed warily.

They grow closer, accompanied by footsteps, and my heart leaps as I recognize the deep baritone of one of the voices.

“It’s Dimitri,” I murmur in shock.

“You have kept them locked up for how long?” Dimitri is saying in a furious, but still calm and kingly tone. “Release them! At once!”

“Your highness, I am under orders from Inspector Agust to-”

“Did you not hear me, officer?”

“Your highness, please…”

“GET YOUR ASS IN HERE AND LET US OUT, BOAR!” Felix hollers.

The door to the jail unlocks and light floods in, blinding us for a moment, for the room had been lit only by a single lantern previously.

As I squint and struggle to adjust to the light, Dimitri’s tall silhouette appears in the doorway and rushes over to the cell.

“Unlock this at once, officer!”

“My liege, I-”

Dimitri grabs the lock on the cell door, wrenching it off with his bare hands, which would be slightly terrifying if I were not so relieved to see him.

“Sylvain! Felix! How long have you been in here?” he says.

“All damn night,” Felix growls. 

Giving up on his orders, the officer comes over and unlocks our handcuffs. As they clatter to the floor, I rub my wrists, my hands tingling painfully as feeling returns to them.

Dimitri seizes me in a hug, crushing me against his chest, and I smile and hug him back. 

I hear a feral sort of cry and see Felix lunge at the officer as soon as his cuffs are free, shouting, “Where is Agust? Get him in here immediately!”

“Yes, my lord!” the officer says and flees.

“What are you doing here?” Felix asks Dimitri.

“I came as soon as I received word of what has been happening, although I knew not of your imprisonment. It seems I came just in time. Why have you two been arrested?”

“Food, water, coffee, then explanations,” he replies.

“Of course. Let us return to your manor. I have horses outside.”

A scattering of officers gather as Dimitri leads us out of the police headquarters but none of them are bold enough to challenge us and Felix and I ignore them.

“We didn’t send word,” Felix says. “How did you find out about all this?”

“I would be a sorry king indeed if I did not know what went on in my own kingdom,” Dimitri replies.

“You have spies in my territory?” Felix asks angrily. “You son of a bitch!”

“Ssh,” I tell him then turn to Dimitri. “Don’t mind him. He’s distraught. So how are things in Fhirdiad? How’s Byleth?”

“She is well. She sends her love. She would have come with me, but one of us had to stay to tend to things. I am sure Ingrid would have come too, but she is currently on a mission outside Faerghus.”

As terribly as I miss Ingrid, I shudder at the thought of her finding us in this situation. “It’s good you came alone,” I say. “Ingrid would have left us in that cell to rot.”

Oliver meets us at the door. "My lord! Thank the goddess you are freed. This entire investigation has been an insulting farce if that inspector thinks for one moment that you-" He breaks off when he sees Dimitri. "Your highness!"

He bows but Dimitri says, "It is just me, Oliver. No need to make a fuss. Would you be so kind as to have some breakfast and tea prepared?"

"Coffee for him," I say, nodding at Felix who is stalking off to his bedroom. "Strong coffee. Thank you, Oliver.”

“I will keep guard and wait for the inspector,” Dimitri says. “Come find me whenever you are ready for breakfast.”

“Thanks.” I hug him again and add, “Seriously, thank you. It means a lot that you would ride all the way here just because Fee and I are in a bit of a pickle.”

“A ‘pickle’ seems quite an understatement, Sylvain. I read the reports. Dark things have happened here as of late.”

My face falls and I nod. “Very dark. But we will speak of that later.”

Once I have freshened up and changed into new clothes, I meet Dimitri in the sitting room that is near to the front door so we can keep an eye out for the inspector. But Agust still has not arrived and Dimitri is sipping a cup of tea with a somber look.

“Where’s Fee?” I ask.

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Huh.” I sit down and help myself to some tea and biscuits.

“Why is it that you two are under suspicion?” Dimitri asks.

I tell him everything that has happened, watching as his expression grows more and more concerned. 

“I will not leave here until this monster has been found,” he says. “However I can help you, I will.”

“Thank you. It’s good to see you. I’ve missed you and Byleth. I was gone too long settling all that business up at the border. I’m afraid I’ve been a bad friend.”

He smiles reassuringly at me and says, “It takes more than a year spent apart to damage friendships that have lasted a lifetime. If Felix forgives you, then so shall I. I have missed you too, though.”

I realize that it has been at least a quarter of an hour and say, “I’m going to go check on Fee. He needs to come have some breakfast.”

“Stay and eat. You need to recover your strength. I will go find him,” Dimitri says.

He walks away and I help myself to another serving of food and pour another cup of tea, feeling the warmth and sustenance drive away the weariness of our sleepless night. But in minutes, I hear running footsteps and glance up in alarm as Dimitri bursts back into the room.

“I think he is gone. His door is locked and he isn’t responding.”

I swear and race to Felix’s room. I pound on the door and when there is no answer, I kick it down and lunge into the room. The window is open and Felix’s coat and sword are gone.

“Shit! He’s gone to the forest. Come on! We need to follow him!” I say.

“Wait, Sylvain,” Dimitri says.

I turn around and see him standing beside the table, holding a note.

“ _‘Left early so you couldn’t argue with me. Go with Dimitri to figure out why Agust arrested us and if he has any other suspects. I need you to distract him for me so I have time to go search Asmer’s house. Ask Dimitri about Morcliff. I’ll meet you in the alley behind the eastside church at sunset. Don’t come after me. We need to divide and conquer, not waste time following each other around. We don’t have much time,’_ ” Dimitri reads.

“Shit! I can’t believe he-” I begin but am interrupted by the thud of footsteps swiftly approaching.

“Duke Fraldarius!” Inspector Agust shouts.

I swear under my breath and glance at Dimitri. “Hide the note and say Fee went to search the city chasing a lead he thought of. We need to buy him space to search the woods.”

“You want me to lie to a policeman?” Dimitri says.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mutter.

Agust bursts into the room and stops abruptly when he sees Dimitri. “Your highness,” he says with a bow.

“Inspector,” Dimitri acknowledges brusquely.

“Is Duke Fraldarius with you? I wish to have a word with him.”

“I wish to have a word with you,” Dimitri says, staring the inspector down with a firm, commanding look. 

I suppose if he is too shit at lying to fool Agust, he can at least play the authority card and refuse to answer his questions.

“I want a full report on the investigation,” Dimitri orders. “And an explanation for why Duke Fraldarius and Margrave Gautier were detained without even being questioned.”

“The explanation for that is simple, my king,” Agust answers. “I needed to buy time. I’m sorry it came at the expense of Margrave Gautier’s comfort, but having him and the duke imprisoned meant that the killer could not strike again because he would not be able to frame the duke for the murder. I needed a day to follow a hunch and in return for it, I have a very valuable lead.”

“Oh?” I ask.

“I have the killer’s accomplice now behind bars.”

* * *

###  **Felix**

The soldiers and police have nothing on me as far as knowledge of this forest goes. Sneaking past them is as simple as taking one of the narrow game trails that Sylvain and I used to take when we needed to avoid Ingrid and Glenn.

It’s tiring to travel on foot instead of horseback but thankfully the old forester’s shack is not as far as the meadow had been. Within an hour, I reach it. My body is stiff and my mind foggy, but I force myself to focus as I begin on one side of the shack and methodically work my way across it. 

It is mostly empty, but here and there are stacks of evidence in crates that the police must have determined to be irrelevant. I dig through it, sneezing at the dust and swearing under my breath every so often at the tediousness of the process.

I don’t know what I am looking for exactly, but anything that could tie Asmer to Morcliff could work to present a case to Agust that is more than conjecture and an admission of childhood crimes.

I’m not sure I entirely buy Sylvain’s theory about Morcliff’s son but I have no better one at the moment and the idea of continuing to wander aimlessly through the dark in this matter galls me too much to stay idle and not chase any possible idea we have.

A twinge of guilt strikes my heart at leaving Sylvain behind, but I stand by what I said in my note. We need to be in two places at once and we can’t do that together. If danger arises in these woods it might be a little risky for me to handle it alone, given my exhausted state. But I also am fairly certain that until this murderer’s plan is complete, he is not going to kill me.

I search the shack exhaustively and find nothing. I guess the police officers were more competent than I gave them credit for being. At least I have smart people in my employ, I suppose. That’s somewhat of a relief.

Dust is clinging uncomfortably to my sweaty skin and I leave the shack and walk over to the stream flowing nearby it. After washing my hands and face, I return to search around the shack itself, but aside from muddled footprints there doesn’t seem to be anything here either.

“Damn this,” I growl. “Damn me.”

I can’t return empty-handed. I just can’t. This needs to end.

Doubling down my efforts, I concentrate harder and continue to search. Finally - finally - my efforts are rewarded when I catch sight of a wilted, shriveled flower stomped into the mud. As I kneel down to study it, I realize apprehensively that it is a trillium, dead from days of being plucked from the ground, but unmistakable nonetheless.

Inside the shack there is a collection of tools and thankfully among them a shovel.

Alright, time to get to work.

Bit by bit I laboriously dig around the flower until my shovel strikes flesh and bone. Feeling sick with the knowledge that yet another one of my citizens has fallen prey to Asmer, I carefully exhume the body until it is exposed enough I can lift it out of its grave.

This one isn’t like the fresh corpses left by the murderer for me to find nor is it cleanly decomposed into a skeleton. This corpse is days old and in the early stages of decay. The smell and sight of the writhing holes where maggots are beginning to feast on it makes me stagger back a few steps and gag.

There’s nothing in my stomach to throw up but I dry heave for several minutes, my head spinning with dizziness and revulsion. When I have my nausea and horror under control, I force myself to return to the body and examine it better.

It’s a man in his early thirties, tall and well-muscled. While alive he would have had the strength and build of a soldier. He is not like the young and vulnerable victims we have found so far. He is naked and his wrists and ankles are bound. I examine them and see the bruises and abrasions where he fought against the bonds.

Gagging again at the stench, I tell myself to stop being a coward and I brush the dirt off his skin enough to see it clearly. All across his body are carved strange designs like symbols and letters in a language I have never seen before. There is no sign of the Fraldarius crest nor the Gautier one.

But dead center in his chest there is a crest of some kind carved, but it isn’t any from Fódlan. It has an archaic, occult look to it - a circle with a wreath of leaves or tentacles of some kind surrounding it. And in the middle of the circle is an eye. 

Grabbing a piece of paper and pen from my pocket, I copy it down along with some of the more noticeable and intact symbols on his body. Then I write as thorough a description as possible of the man’s features - his short-cropped black hair, pale skin, strong jawline and high cheekbones. 

Once I am sure I have analyzed all there is to find on the corpse, I fetch a blanket from the shack and cover him in it, dragging him over to the ground under the eaves of the shack where the weather cannot wear him down as much.

Returning to the stream, I scrub my hands and arms vigorously until my skin hurts. Even so, I still feel filthy and ill.

My reflection catches my attention in the rippling water, distorted and eerie. It shifts a bit before my eyes and I swear for a second that it takes on a life of its own and stares back at me. With a shudder, I snap out of my daze and jump to my feet.

Not good. Not good at all. Sleep deprivation is wearing down my senses again. How long can I keep this up? How long can I stay on my feet?

“I’ll rest when this is over,” I snap at myself and set out back towards the town.

I have to keep going. A horrible premonition is growing inside me that all of this has suddenly gotten far darker than it already was.


	14. The Prisoner's Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prisoner agrees to turn in the killer in exchange for immunity and to Sylvain's surprise, Felix agrees to the deal. Together with Dimitri and Inspector Agust, Sylvain and Felix go to confront the killer and discover both the truth of their suspicions and the secrets that lie behind it.

## 14 - THE PRISONER’S DEAL

###  **Sylvain**

“Fee?” I call out as loudly as I dare, hunting around in the alley behind the church where he had said to meet back up with him.

“Over here,” a groggy, hoarse voice says and I follow it to where he is slumped in the shadows behind a heap of broken down crates.

He doesn’t get up as I walk over. He just blinks at me sleepily and rubs his forehead with a pained look.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” I whisper, sitting down next to him and pulling him into my arms. We need to head back to the police precinct immediately to fill Felix in on what Agust found, but I figure we can spare a moment to be together.

Besides, I’m not even sure he can walk right now. He looks half-dead.

When I hold him close, he doesn’t stiffen or pull away. He just melts against me and mumbles something I can’t hear.

“What?”

“Nothing. Where’s Dimitri?”

“With Agust. They’ve caught the killer’s accomplice. They’re working on getting information out of him.”

“Alright,” he replies vaguely, as if he didn’t quite hear me.

“How long have you been awake for now? Almost two days?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.”

He wraps his arms around my waist and tucks his head under my chin. He smells like sweat and dirt and garbage but I can’t bear to push him away or make him get up just yet.

“What happened to you?” I ask.

“Found another body.”

“What? Where?”

“Outside the shack. Dead a week or two at least.”

“Shit. Really? Do you know who-”

“Not right now,” he murmurs. “Give me a minute. I’m…”

“Exhausted,” I say.

He swears quietly in response.

Lifting him up to his feet, I say, “The accomplice is behind bars. Agust is doing his job and investigating. There’s nothing that immediately needs our attention. Let’s get you a bath and some food and we can go to the police precinct in an hour. An hour won’t make a difference to the investigation but it will for your health and sanity. Come on.”

He doesn’t protest as I lead him over to my horse and lift him into the saddle. Swinging up behind him, I nudge my horse into a canter and ride back to the manor house.

“No, no,” Felix mumbles when it finally dawns on him what we are doing. “We need to talk to the police.”

“I’ll send word to them that we will rejoin them in an hour. Don’t argue with me,” I say, dragging him into the house and asking a servant to draw us a bath.

It’s like leading a sleepwalker around as I bring him to the kitchen, sit him down in a chair and pile food on a plate in front of him. He eats automatically, staring into nothing with unfocused, squinting eyes. Wherever his mind is, it isn’t reality.

What did he find in the woods that has shaken him up? Or is it simply sleep-deprivation? Maybe it’s both. He’s not going to make it through another day with any kind of energy or coherence if he doesn’t take care of himself. 

Right now the cruel truth is that he can’t afford to sleep for a night and get his strength back. He has to hold out at least a few hours more. But food and a bath will go a long ways.

As soon as he has eaten and drank enough to satisfy my concern, I lead him through the house to the luxurious washroom attached to his chamber. Inside is a steaming bath and a stack of fresh towels.

Still acting automatically, he tugs off his clothes and climbs in, sitting in the water and closing his eyes. I perch on the edge of the tub and pull the pins out of his hair, combing my fingers through it.

“You going to fall asleep?” I ask.

“No,” he mumbles.

I hand him a washcloth but he just stares blankly at it. After a minute, I decide to just give him time to recover and not expect him to do anything. Dipping the cloth in the hot soapy water, I brush the streaks of dust and dirt from his face and neck and shoulders. He hugs his knees and rests his forehead on them with a quiet _mmm_ noise.

My touch seems to revive him a bit and he takes the cloth from me and finishes washing up. After he has dried off and brushed his hair, he starts to walk out to his room to get clean clothes but he sways blearily and grabs onto the towel rack to steady himself, spitting a curse between clenched teeth.

“Take it easy for a moment,” I say.

“I don’t have time to take it easy! I’ve already wasted too much time.”

“Stop it. You aren’t any good to anyone dead on your feet.”

I reach for his hand but he swats it away. “I’m fine.”

“Are you now?”

“Yes. Stop babying me. I’ve been through worse. I’ll be fine.”

When he tries to walk again, I scoop him off his feet and carry him into the bedroom.

“Put me down!” he says, struggling to get out of my arms.

“Fucking hell, Fee. Just- just- Stop it, alright?”

I dump him roughly onto the bed where he sits and looks at me with a similar resentful expression to the one that Wolfie gets when you pick him up without his permission.

“I’m fine.”

“If you say that one more time, I swear to the goddess-”

His scowl fades and the sharp look in his eyes softens. “I can’t let anything stop me. I have to see this through. There’s so much more going on than we thought and I can’t rest until we have figured out what.”

Kneeling down in front of him, I pick up his hand in both of mine and say, “Nothing in this world can stop you when you have your mind set on something. Just let me help you if I can. I love you.”

He stares at me awkwardly for a moment then lifts my hands and presses his lips against my knuckles. It’s such a sweet, old-fashioned gesture it surprises me.

“I love you too,” he murmurs.

I smile up at him. “Knowing that, I feel unstoppable too. And we have hope now - real, solid hope. Once we break that suspect and get him to talk, we will know how to find the killer and we will end this. We won’t be in the dark anymore.” I stand up and let go of his hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

He is a little steadier on his feet as he gets dressed and buckles his sword belt back on. As I reach for the doorknob, he stops me and puts his arms around me. Pressing my back up against the door, he kisses me hungrily, his energy rising up, fueled by a deep need for comfort.

Running my fingers through his long, silky hair that still hanging loose around his shoulders, I kiss him back with the same longing. It’s a clumsy kiss - wet, fumbling, desperate and raw with an intimacy I haven’t felt before from him. He isn’t seeking arousal or affection, just the reassurance of love.

I swear I have never loved him more than I do in this moment. This weary, beaten-down version of Felix is him at his lowest. And yet here he is, at the edge of his sanity and strength, persevering, unyielding, and full of passion still. 

“I love you,” he says again, his breath hot and raspy against my lips. “You… you…” He kisses me again, then leans his forehead against mine. “You never give up on me.”

“I never will,” I whisper. “I believe in you with more certainty than I believe in anything else. And I love you with everything in me.”

One more deep, yearning kiss then he lets go of me and says, “Let’s go.”

This time when I take his hand, he doesn’t pull it away. And when we get back in the saddle of my horse, he sits behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, resting his head against my neck.

At the police precinct, I find Dimitri pacing restlessly around the entryway. 

“Has he said anything yet?” I ask.

“No. He has not said a single word.”

Felix walks in after me and Dimitri goes over to him with a look of concern. “Did you meet with any trouble in the woods?” he asks.

“Nothing alive,” Felix answers. “But I found another corpse - a week or two old, buried outside Asmer’s house.”

There is a heavy gruffness to his voice but his expression is alert and I can tell his mind is firmly anchored in reality, at least for now. He pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket and hands it to Dimitri. “Does this mean anything to you?”

I look over Dimitri’s shoulder at the drawing and study it in confusion. “I’ve never seen a crest like that. Was this carved on the body?” I ask.

“Yes. Along with a bunch of other weird symbols. Our crests weren’t anywhere on him. Just this one. And the man was different from the other victims - older, strong like a soldier.”

I glance at Dimitri’s face and my heart falls at the look of dread in his wide eyes.

“You recognize it,” Felix says.

He nods slowly, still staring down at the drawing.

“Well?” Felix asks.

“We cannot speak of this here,” he says in a hushed tone. It almost sounds frightened. But what the hell could frighten Dimitri? He is the most frightening thing in Fódlan.

“My lords,” Inspector Agust says, walking over to us. “Now that Duke Fraldarius is here, do you wish to question the prisoner?”

Dimitri tucks the piece of paper into his pocket quickly and looks at Felix who nods with a determined frown at Agust.

“I’ll get something out of him, one way or another,” he says darkly.

I’m a little worried to find out what exactly that means, but to a certain point, I wouldn’t stop Felix from using force if he has to - not after what this killer has done and what he might yet do.

The three of us follow Agust to the jail cell where the prisoner is waiting. As we walk, Agust explains, “His name is Sterling. He was one of the soldiers assigned to my unit to help and has been present for all of these events. I had some suspicions that one of our own could be involved in helping the killer get in and out of places undetected. I needed time to investigate carefully. I won’t accuse one of our men without irrefutable evidence. While I had you and Margrave Gautier in holding to buy myself time, I searched through every record made of the original investigation and found enough reason to narrow down my suspicion to him. When I pulled him aside to ask questions, he tried to run but we caught him before he could get far. In his house we found traces of the ingredients used in the poison.”

“But you don’t think he is the killer himself?” Felix asks.

“No. He has no discernible motive, no personal connection to you, and no history of mental instability or criminal record. He doesn’t fit the profile of a serial killer. But we did find a fair amount of gold in a hidden safe in his home. I think it far more likely he was bribed by the killer to gain access to Fraldarius Manor. We won’t know for sure until he talks but I have no doubt he is involved in this matter.”

“Hm,” is all Felix says. “We’ll see how long he-”

He stops mid-sentence and freezes when we walk into the jail and he catches sight of the prisoner Sterling.

“What the-” he breathes.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him, looking from his shocked face to the prisoner who is staring back at him with an unreadable expression.

“Duke Fraldarius,” Sterling says, speaking up for the first time.

Felix recovers from his shock and his whole body goes tense. He walks calmly over to the bars and studies the man. “Talk or you will regret it,” he growls.

“Are you going to torture me?” he asks curiously.

“I’ll do whatever I need to to get the information I need. For your sake, don’t find out how far I’ll-”

“Felix-” Dimitri warns but Felix ignores him.

“Tell me what you know of Riordan Asmer,” Felix orders.

“He killed a lot of people,” Sterling says.

“Are there more bodies we haven’t discovered yet?” Felix asks. “Any buried by his forester shack?”

The careful, impassive expression on Sterling’s face does not falter, but he doesn’t answer and his eyes momentarily dart away from Felix’s face.

“I want full immunity,” Sterling says.

“For what?” Felix asks.

“Not only telling you who is behind the killings but leading you right to his front door.”

Dimitri touches Felix’s arm and pulls him aside with me. “If he did not kill anyone by his own hand then it is in your purview to grant him immunity.”

“I know that,” Felix replies testily.

“You have never had to play the role of judge before. It is not an easy thing for a ruler to do,” Dimitri says. “I have had to many times in the aftermath of the war.”

“I’ll grant him anything he wants. He’s not going to live through the night,” Felix says.

“You are going to lie to a man and kill him without trial?” Dimitri asks in alarm.

“He’s not even alive,” Felix growls. “Now for the love of Seiros, trust me and follow my lead. I will explain everything soon.”

What is Felix doing? Whatever he found in the woods has given him leverage over Sterling; that much is obvious. I just hope whatever his plan is, he is in sound enough mind to think it through. I have no choice but to play along with him for now, though. 

Felix yanks his arm free from Dimitri’s hand and walks over to the prison bars. “I will grant you immunity,” he tells Sterling. “Whatever crimes you committed in complicity are less important to me than the person who has been slaughtering my citizens. Lead me to him and you will earn your pardon.”

“He lives in the-”

“I said lead me to him. You’re coming along,” Felix says. He glances at Agust. “Release him.”

“My lord-” the inspector begins but Dimitri interrupts him.

“Whether or not you see fit to comply with Duke Fraldarius’s orders, you will certainly comply with mine. Cuff the man and release him, Inspector.”

Good old Dimitri. Gentle as a kitten sometimes, terrifying as a dragon other times. Maybe if I got an eyepatch and a great fur coat people would show me the same amount of respect.

Once Sterling is free, Agust double checks his handcuffs then draws a dagger. Keeping the blade in one hand, he holds the chain of the cuffs in the other and says, “I wouldn’t advise you to try anything, soldier. You will my have my knife to your back, not to mention three of the most dangerous warriors in Fódlan with you.”

As we leave the precinct, Agust motions for a handful of police officers to accompany us but Felix says, “That won’t be necessary, Inspector.”

Agust hesitates then calls them off. “Where are we going?” he asks Sterling.

“To the northern edge of town. There is a home at the dead end of Jasper Street where he is staying.”

“How much do you know about Hamish Morcliff?” I ask, causing Felix to glance over at me with a questioning expression. I give him a look that says _'maybe I'm right. Who knows?'_ and he shrugs.

“Probably less than the King of Faerghus does,” Sterling says.

“How long has he been in Fraldarius territory?” Dimitri asks, playing along.

“I suppose I do know more then. He returned here three months ago.”

“And you have been in his employ the entire time?” Dimitri asks.

Sterling does not reply and when Agust digs the butt of the knife into his back he says contemptuously, “Asmer was the one who did the killing. Morcliff kept him like a rabid dog on a chain, feeding his sick bloodlust by tossing him victims.”

So I was right!

Felix and I exchange looks and I fall back a step to walk beside him and whisper in his ear, “Dimitri told me that the son, Hamish, locked himself up in Morcliff Manor after his father died and no one heard from him until he was drafted into the war. He fought for Cornelia and supposedly died in the siege of Fhirdiad. Apparently he denied his father’s crimes until the end. The government kept tabs on him but never found signs of him being involved in what Francis did.”

“How could he possibly believe that scumbag was innocent?” Felix hisses angrily.

“Apparently he claimed that his father had been forced to but he never said by who and no one could get him to testify at the trial. He just shut himself away and wasn’t really seen or heard from until the war.”

“‘Forced to,’” Felix scoffs. “Disgusting.”

“I’d be happier about my theory turning out to be true if it hadn’t led to these horrible consequences.”

Felix nods. “It was a good instinct. But listen, there’s much more going on here. I can’t talk about it yet, but stay on your toes. This is not going to go how we think it will.”

His ominous warning makes my heart sink but I don’t dare question him with Agust and Sterling so close by. Taking my lance from its sling on my back, I grip the hilt until my knuckles are white and scan our surroundings warily as we cross the city.

“Who killed the body left in Fraldarius Manor?” Agust asks Sterling. “Asmer is dead.”

“I think your boy Hamish got desperate enough to get his own hands dirty for once. Or maybe Asmer peaked his interest in murder. Who knows,” he answers.

“Who did he get the hallucinogenic poison from?” Agust asks.

“Some fancy mage in Fhirdiad, I imagine. I have no way of knowing.”

“There were ingredients in your house.”

“Because Morcliff asked me to buy them. I don’t know what he was doing with them. Any other questions, Inspector? If you want to write them down, I can work on the list once we are through here and your killer is behind bars.”

“You’re staying behind bars too until those questions are answered,” Agust growls.

“Fair enough,” Sterling says. “But the duke is honor-bound to keep his promise at some point. I’m taking quite the risk ratting out Morcliff. That man is a monster and getting on his bad side is about as terrifying as getting on yours. I’m not doing this lightly.”

“Really? Because it seems like-” Agust begins but Felix cuts him off.

“Inspector, our questions for this man can wait until after the killer has been apprehended. Let us focus on the task ahead.”

“I have one more question I would like answered,” Dimitri speaks up.

“Fire away, your highness,” Sterling replies.

“Do you really think you can escape if you are leading us into a trap?” he asks.

Sterling does look slightly startled at that but he answers calmly nonetheless. “I don’t imagine I would. I’ve set my course selling out Morcliff. You will find him alone. He has no other allies or confidants now that Asmer is dead. I’m not stupid enough to try to play the three great war dogs of Faerghus with my hands cuffed behind my back.”

I stick close to Felix as we walk, casting sideways glances every so often at the strained hypervigilance in his manner and the fierce, thoughtful scowl on his face. He is plotting something.

Is he in any shape to coherently plot anything? What is he keeping from us?

Finally we reach Jasper Street and follow it down to its end on the outskirts of the town where we find a small, one-room house surrounded by an iron gate. Dimitri wrenches the lock off the gate with ease and pushes the door open.

Weapons raised, he and Felix and I approach the door, Agust and Sterling following along behind us.

“One wrong move and you’re dead,” Agust threatens Sterling.

“I’m aware,” he says.

Agust looks at the three of us and says, “Spread out and surround the house quietly. Try to get a glimpse through the windows of who is inside. Once we’re-”

Felix nods at Dimitri and he raises his lance and kicks down the door. 

As we bolt into the house, leaving an exasperated Agust behind, I take stock swiftly of the sparse, brightly-lit room. 

Within stands a man a couple years older than us - deathly pale, stark white hair, haggard but not frail. There is a vicious, gleaming scalpel in his hand.

And tied to a table is a girl - naked, gagged, eyes wide as the moon in terror, blood dripping scarlet across her skin from the half-drawn crest sliced into her stomach.

It all happens in a flash.

Felix dives at Morcliff, evading his frantic attack.

Dimitri roars in and seizes Morcliff’s arms, wrestling them behind his back and pinning him down against the floor.

I run to the girl and swiftly draw healing magic to my hands, sealing up the incisions before she can lose more blood.

While I cast the spell, she just stares up at me with the kind of spine-chilling terror someone gets when looking a demonic beast in the eyes.

“Sylvain!” Dimitri says.

“I healed her!” I reply. “She’s alright!”

As he drags Morcliff to the other side of the room and binds him to a chair, I untie the girl and remove her gag.

“You’re going to be okay,” I tell her gently. “We’re going to take you home. You’re safe now.”

I try to help her sit up but the moment I put my hands on her she screams and throws herself off the table, scrambling into the corner of the room like a cornered animal. She grabs the scalpel up off the floor where Morcliff dropped it and brandishes it at me with shaking hands.

“Don’t touch me!” she shrieks.

“It’s okay. You’re safe. I’m not going to hurt you,” I say, kneeling down and holding up my hands in a sign of surrender. 

She whimpers in fear and clutches the scalpel in both hands. “Get away from me! GET AWAY!”

“She’s been drugged,” Felix says. “Be careful.”

My heart aches at the sight of her cowering away from me. It feels wrong to use force on someone so vulnerable, but she needs to be taken out of here and to a physician as soon as possible. 

I walk closer slowly, then when I am within reach, I leap forward, dodging the clumsy swing of the scalpel, and grab her wrists, forcing her to drop the weapon. She struggles and cries out, but in seconds I have her gently but firmly pinned in my arms.

“We need to get her out of here!” I tell Agust. “Help me bind her hands then take her to a physician immediately! She needs to be sedated and cared for!”

He hands Sterling’s chain to Felix and helps me. Once we have the girl subdued, he says, “You take her to the physician on Eighth Street.”

I glance at Felix and he shakes his head at me.

“No, I’m not leaving here until I have answers from Morcliff,” I reply. “Take her. We will haul Morcliff and Sterling to the police precinct.”

“Bring him in alive!” Agust says.

“We will. You have my word,” Dimitri says. “Please, Inspector. See to it that this girl is safe.”

He looks both furious and uneasy at the order, but complies, taking the girl from me and leading her away. She stops thrashing but terror is still etched deeply across her expression.

After he is gone, Felix hands Sterling over to Dimitri and together, he and I stand before Hamish Morcliff and study him. He must know resistance is pointless, because he doesn’t fight against his bonds. Instead he stares up at us with cold, calm hatred.

“You stupid, self-righteous pigs,” he spits at us. “You took everything from me.”

“We put a rapist and kidnapper behind bars,” I reply, “whereas you have the blood of innocent people on your hands.”

“We didn’t put him behind bars,” Felix snaps at Hamish. “A judge and jury did. If you can’t accept that, you are a fool.”

“I don’t give a fuck about my father!” Hamish yells, losing his composure. “He did deserve to burn in hell! But you- you left me at their mercy! You have no idea what they took from me! What they did to me!”

“What who did to you?” Dimitri asks.

Hamish looks past us at Sterling, his uncanny red eyes narrowing. “Are you going to kill me?” He laughs. “Go ahead. I should have killed myself years ago instead of cowing to you!”

“You’re going to hang for what you’ve done, Hamish,” Sterling answers. “But I’ll have no part in it. The law will. You’re a killer, after all. A psychopath.”

“Psychopath?” Hamish laughs again. “Fuck you. Fuck all of you!”

I glance at Sterling in confusion and Dimitri holds onto the chain of his cuffs tighter. “What is going on here?” he growls.

“The man is insane. No normal person turns to such methods for revenge,” Sterling replies. “He’ll do anything to deflect the blame, just as he did with his father. Questioning him won’t do you any good. You’d better take him in before your inspector grows more suspicious.”

“I have one more question before we do,” Felix says. “And I need it answered before the police arrive.” He turns to Hamish and asks, “Did you kill this solider or did Asmer? Who else is buried in those woods and yet still walking the streets alive?”

Sterling stiffens with a look of fear. Before any of us can react to Felix’s accusation, five things happen almost simultaneously:

With a flicker, Sterling disappears and materializes on the far side of the room, his cuffs vanished.

He snatches a vial from the shelf and hurls it on the ground, releasing a heavy cloud of smoke into the air.

Another flicker and he is behind Morcliff, slashing the scalpel across his throat.

In the same instant, Felix and I dive at Sterling. But Felix is too slow and I grab Sterling instead. A strange sensation seizes me, like every fiber of my body is being undone then knit back together again.

When the flash of blinding light clears, Morcliff’s house is gone and Sterling and I are lying on the ground in a barren field. 

As my reeling senses steady, Sterling staggers to his feet and turns to me, a shimmering knife materializing in his hand.

“I handed you your killer on a silver platter. You should have taken him and lived the rest of your life in peace. Now you are all going to die,” he says, lunging at me.


	15. Caged Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't put Dimitri in a cage pumped full of hallucinogenic drugs.  
> Very, very bad idea.

## 15 - CAGED GHOSTS

###  **Felix**

I wrap my hands around Morcliff’s throat to hold back the bleeding and focus desperately on the healing spell. I’ve been practicing them every night as Sylvain sleeps, keeping my promise to him that next time he is hurt I will be able to save him.

The skin fuses back together again, but I know that isn’t enough. I push through the hazy feeling in my mind and search his body with the healing magic, fixing the damage done internally. He chokes and coughs up blood as I finish the spell. As he spits an insult at me, I breathe a sigh of relief at the fact I healed him well enough that he can talk. We wouldn’t have been able to get an explanation and confession out of him if I hadn’t fixed his vocal chords well enough.

Letting go of him, I say, “Dimitri! Help me carry him out of here!”

But as I turn around, the sight that meets me chills me to the bone.

The nightshade poison is spreading swiftly through the confined space of the small house and it has caught up to Dimitri. He is standing a few feet away, staring at me like he is seeing a ghost.

“Fuck. Get out of here! Dimitri! Get out!” I cry, bolting towards the door. If I can get him out into the fresh air before he breathes too much of the poison, maybe he won’t-

With a roar, he lunges at me and tackles me to the floor, his huge, strong body hitting me so hard it knocks the breath from my lungs. I gasp air back into my lungs instinctively, realizing my mistake a split-second too late.

Fuck. Fuck! 

My vision blurs, light and shadow swirling in disorienting patterns around us. I look up into Dimitri’s wide eyes and his face flickers and distorts. For one horrible second, I see a boar looking back at me, blood dripping from its massive jaws, its eyes solid black like gouged holes. I blink and the image vanishes.

“Get off me!” I say, struggling under his grip. I hear laughter in the background. Morcliff’s.

“It’s all a trap!” Dimitri hisses. “You are not real!”

“I am real! Get the fuck off me! Get out of here!”

He keeps me pinned to the ground, expressions of fear and horror passing across his face as he struggles to look at me clearly. “You are not real. They take your bodies and they come back to slither among us! But I will not let you take my friends from me! I will not let you take anything else from me!” He moves his hands to my throat furiously. “Where is Felix? Where is Sylvain?”

“Dimitri, it’s me!” I croak, grabbing his wrists and trying to wrestle them away to no avail.

“How many people are you going to take from me?” he demands. “Father, mother, Glenn, Edelgard… You are soaked in the blood of people I loved! Now you take my two dearest friends? What do you want from me? Why have you come slithering from your shadows to torment me again?”

“Dima,” I gasp. “Please…”

The childhood nickname stirs something in him and his fingers loosen around my throat.

“Dima, it’s really me. The drug is messing with your mind! The imposter is gone. It’s just me here. We need to escape! Let go of me.”

Agony twists his expression. “You lie.”

“I’m not lying. Trust-” I stop mid-sentence as a figure materializes behind him, standing in the corner, sword drawn but lowered. It is too wreathed in shadows and indistinct to make out at first, then I recognize its face and a choked cry of pain escapes my lips. “Glenn.”

No, no, no, no. It’s Dimitri’s words messing with me, his own ghosts invading my mind to haunt me. It’s not real. None of this is real!

Run, Felix! Run! Get out of here! You have to find Sylvain! You have to-

Glenn steps closer, still fading in and out of existence. His brow furrows in grief and he whispers something but I can’t hear him over the pounding of my own heart and the ragged pants of Dimitri’s breathing.

The world spins, grows dark. Blood blooms across Glenn’s chest, flowing from too many wounds to count, spreading from his hands to the blade of his sword, dripping down onto the floor. Again he speaks but again I can’t hear his voice.

Can I even remember what his voice sounded like?

Abruptly, Dimitri lets go of me and whirls around, scrambling to his feet and grabbing his lance. He stabs it into the shadows and says, “Get back! Leave us!”

I can’t see the demons he is fighting. I can’t get up. I can’t move. I can’t tear my eyes away from Glenn, watching in a paralysis of agony as fire licks at his skin along with the blood, searing it away to blackened flesh. He drops the sword and falls to his knees.

“No-” I breathe. “No, Glenn, please-”

My paralysis breaks and I haul myself to my hands and knees. Crawling forward, I try to touch him but my hand sweeps through the air without making contact. I reach for him desperately, a healing spell glowing in my hands.

“Hold on, I can save you!” I gasp. “Glenn-”

An anguished cry cuts through me. Not mine. Glenn’s? No, Dimitri’s.

Something hot and wet is spreading across my face. Blood? No, tears.

My eyes burn, my lungs ache, my heart pounds so hard it feels like it is bludgeoning my chest from the inside.

Glenn mouths the word _‘go’_ and when I throw myself towards him to grab him, he vanishes entirely and I fall through the space where he was a second ago and hit the floor.

Whimpers. Tears. My own. 

A voice screaming out names of ghosts. Dimitri’s.

Laughter. Manic and pained. Morcliff’s.

I stumble up, dodging the swing of Dimitri’s lance as he crashes through the house attacking shadows. I look for the door but when I finally find it, steel bars are blocking it off. As I turn around, I see that the house itself is gone, replaced with a cage, a prison, only reeling darkness and smoke visible through its bars.

* * *

###  **Sylvain**

Instincts sharpened through years of battle lend me the speed to evade his attack and I am back on my feet, dodging out of reach of him in seconds.

“Who are you? What do you want with us?” I say, dancing away as he swings at me again.

“With you? Nothing,” the demon in Sterling’s body answers with a clipped laugh. “You and your friends are just lab rats. That’s all you humans are good for! And once we have our weapons readied, you will die in fire and smoke, slaughtering each other like animals.”

“Just like Remire Village,” I say, remembering the stench of death in the air and the eerie moment Tomas transformed into the demon. 

Sterling circles me, looking for an opening, but each time he attacks, I am just a little faster. There is something about the way he moves that doesn’t seem quite natural, like his body is a puppet on strings. There is always a tiny second of delay in his movements. If I can just stay one step ahead, I could survive this.

Stay sharp, Sylvain. Look for a weapon! Keep him talking.

“Morcliff was just a tool for your experiments, wasn’t he?” I say.

“Once the fires of your hatred and fears are stoked, you humans take very little pushing to do our work for us. It really is disgusting,” he replies. “Asmer was chomping at the bit for a chance to carve up more victims. And Hamish was so easy to manipulate into turning his anger on you instead of his real tormentors.” He laughs again. “It’s like watching bad theater. You all are so stupid.”

“And yet we still caught you,” I answer, leaping out of the way of another strike.

“You would have lived if you hadn’t stuck your nose in too deep.”

“None of us are dead yet.”

Sterling stops moving for a moment then disappears. I jump forward but cannot get out of the way in time to stop his blade from slicing across my back as he teleports behind me.

Pain burns through me from the wound, but it is not enough to stagger me. This time when he vanishes again, I whip around and grab his arm with both hands as he stabs at me again. I wrench the blade from him and thrust his arm down, bringing my knee up at the same time to collide with it.

The bone snaps and he yells in pain. For an instant Sterling’s form flickers, betraying a glimpse of a different person beneath it. Then he teleports again and when he appears a few feet away from me, his image has stabilized to Sterling’s once more.

I grab the knife up off the ground but the second I touch it, it dematerializes. Sterling’s right arm hangs limp and broken at his side, but he summons another unearthly blade to his left hand and attacks.

* * *

###  **Felix**

I spin in circles, taking in the nightmare around me. All along the walls of our cage are strung bodies. They writhe and flicker in the corner of my eye, but the moment I blink and stare at them they hang limp and dead once more. I count them in horror, more appearing each time I look again.

Thena. The first girl we found in the woods.

Orin. The blinded man.

Harriet and Miles. The two soldiers who killed each other beside him.

The girl with the cut throat.

Sterling’s rotten body, covered in scarred symbols.

Oh goddess no. No.

I turn around and see a seventh body in the shadows in the corner of the room, the crest of Fraldarius bleeding in his chest. It’s Sylvain.

With a strangled cry, I run to him, but I trip and fall flat on my face. When I look up, he is gone and all the corpses have vanished. I try to get up, but I’m too light-headed and exhausted to move.

A voice whispers in the distance but I can’t make out who it is or what he is saying. Clutching my head in my hands, I try to block out all the hallucinations, try to tell myself to focus on what is real. But I can’t make the voice go away. It’s calling my name.

I move my hands away from my ears and listen, a spark of hope lighting up in my mind as I recognize the voice as Sylvain’s.

_“I love you.”_

But he’s not here. He’s dead. I saw his body on the wall with the others. 

_“I love you, Fee,”_ he says again, _“more than anything.”_

Slowly, I pick myself up and shake my head a bit to clear away the haze, looking for him. “Sylvain!”

He doesn’t reply. The voice falls silent.

“I love you too,” I whisper.

The emotion grows so strong that I feel energy returning to my body - desperate, terrified, but steady. Sure. 

“I love you,” I say to the darkness. I know he can’t hear me. But the words are like a lifeline to sanity nonetheless.

“Sylvain?” I call, straining my eyes to see through the swirling, distorted world around me. But I can’t find him anywhere. Instead I see a great, hulking shadow in the corner, huddled in on itself, shuddering. A glimmer of blue and gold. Dimitri.

Run, Felix! Now, while he isn’t looking. Run!

Just enough clarity remains in my mind to answer the panicked thought. 

No.

Crawling over to him, I kneel down next to him and say his name. He doesn’t respond, curling in on himself, shoulders shaking.

Tentatively, I reach out and touch his back, fingers brushing the rough hide of a boar. No, not a boar. Just the fur of his cloak.

“Dima.”

He looks up at me, one eye a black hole, the other a glistening shard of blue sky, glowing with fear. Tear streaks cover his reddened face.

My head is spinning and my vision is still fading in and out, but I struggle through the haze, shaking my head a bit to clear it.

“Dima,” I whisper. I touch his cheek and he flinches, causing me to yank my hand back in alarm. 

“I can’t do this,” he says hoarsely. “Not again. I left these ghosts behind. I can’t let them come back to haunt me.”

“It’s only in your mind,” I tell him. “They’re not real.”

“I always knew that and yet it never made them any less terrifying.”

He looks past me, staring into nothing. He opens his mouth to speak again then falls silent.

“Can you break through the bars?” I ask.

He stirs. “What bars?”

“The cage. Can you break us out? I don’t think I can. I’m too…” Weak. Exhausted. Unsteady. I’m not sure my trembling hands can even hold a sword.

Dimitri gets to his feet, looking around determinedly. Then he freezes and says, “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” I ask, dragging myself up.

He jumps and grabs his lance. “That voice.”

I hold my breath and listen but there is only silence, torn by ragged startled breaths.

“Byleth,” he whispers.

He runs forward and slams the hilt of his lance against the steel bars barricading the door. They splinter like wood and light blinds my eyes agonizingly, followed by a rush of cold wind in my face.

The shadows thin. The smoke clears. I stumble towards the light, plunging out into the open sky. I only make it a few steps before I collapse onto the dirt, heaving for breath. A racking cough wrenches my lungs, but as I suck fresh air back into them, a rush of clarity sweeps away some of the poison in my mind and I remember.

Sylvain is alive, but he disappeared with the imposter. We have to find him somehow.


	16. Endure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain can't win this fight against the demon without a weapon. But maybe he can survive long enough to outwit him.

##  **16 - ENDURE**

###  **Sylvain**

I was never much of a brawler. I felt enough fists as a kid that throwing them as an adult left a bitter taste in my mouth.

I’m not going to win this with my fists. I lack the training to fight a dagger unarmed. Maybe Felix could do it, but I know I can’t. And eventually my speed will falter and that knife will end up between my ribs or across my throat.

I could run. But I will be DAMNED if I turn tail and let this bastard live to keep torturing and killing!

“Your friends will have torn each other apart limb from limb by now,” he taunts me.

“You tried twice to get Felix and I to hurt each other with your poison and neither time it worked. I’m surprised you still have any faith in it,” I say. 

“One of the things I learned from my experiments is that it has limits, especially on someone like you who has no history of psychosis. But your king?” Sterling laughs. “It takes very little to snap his mind and unleash the beast he hides.”

Dread steals over me at the truth of his words and the realization that on a good day Felix can barely win a fight against Dimitri. Tired and distraught as he is right now… he doesn’t stand a chance.

Taking advantage of my distraction, Sterling teleports beside me and the tip of his knife catches my arm as I dodge away a fraction of a second too slow.

Trust Felix, I tell myself. He won’t be so easily beaten, even in his weakened state.

Returning my full focus to the moment, I circle Sterling, studying his movements. The intervals between his teleport spells are lengthening. He can’t keep them up forever, can he? I think Lysithea said something to that effect once. You can only cast them so many times before the strain on your body exhausts you.

Whatever this thing is, it’s not human, but it has human limits. Its arm is still broken and it still feels pain.

This is how I win. I endure. I outlast it.

Drawing healing magic to my palm, I clamp it over the wound on my arm and grit my teeth as the skin knits back together. Sterling strikes while I cast the spell, but I duck beneath his swing and fall back. He chases after me, lured in by the temptation of gaining ground. Without using his teleport spell, he attacks. But facing him head on gives me the opportunity for a counterattack.

As he steps within reach, I dodge and strike, slamming my fist into his chest. He teleports away immediately, a bit winded but unharmed. I shake my hand, my fingers bruised. I think I hurt myself more than him. Damn it! I don’t know how to throw a fucking punch.

Again Sterling teleports behind me and manages to slice his blade across my side. Again I heal the cut and run out of reach.

“Damn you!” he growls, panting for breath. “Just die already!”

I laugh, my own breath racing and heart pounding from the exertion. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Once more we repeat our dance.

Twice.

Three times.

My body is on fire with the pain of healing spells. Sterling is grunting with rage every time he attacks and swearing foully.

Four.

Five.

I don’t know how much longer I can do this. My healing spells are waning, my body is protesting each movement and push of magic.

I clench my teeth and stare back at Sterling furiously. He is swaying unsteadily, his image flickering to reveal the demon underneath. Finally the disguise breaks altogether, the exertion of magic that holds it together likely running out. His true form reveals itself - a human-like body but with facial features that are twisted and unnatural. His skin is ash-white and his eyes dark, surrounded by symbols tattooed in black ink.

“Who are you?” I ask. “Tell me that much at least before I die.”

“We are the ones who slither in the dark,” he says with a breathless, guttural laugh. “And one day we will walk your land and rebuild it once the heaps of your corpses rot into the ground and the rivers of your blood dry into the dirt.”

* * *

###  **Felix**

Clear-headed once more, I rack my brain to try to think of how we find Sylvain.

“How far can a teleport spell go?” I ask Dimitri.

But he is still on his knees, arms wrapped around himself, his whole body trembling.

“Dimitri! Get up! We have to go after them!” I snap. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

He doesn’t respond and when I put my hand on his shoulder and give it a gentle shake he flinches and closes his eyes.

“Snap out of it! We’re safe now. Come on!”

“Go before I hurt you,” he murmurs.

“You’re not going to hurt me. Stop being dramatic. Get up!”

He exhales a long breath and covers his face with his hands. “I can’t be sure.”

“I’m sure,” I reply, kneeling down in front of him. “Look at me. Dima, look at me!”

He lifts his face from his hands and gives me a tortured look.

“I’m sure,” I repeat.

“You should not be.”

“Well, I am.”

“Why?” he asks.

“Because I know you. I saw you destroy yourself until it seemed like there was nothing left of the man I knew. But then I watched as you came back stronger. You used to be one crazy motherfucker, Dima. But not anymore. I believe that absolutely and I thought you left behind all that wretched self-loathing enough to believe it too. So get up! Sylvain needs us.”

“I could have killed you. I nearly did,” he says.

“I know. Now are you going to make up for it by helping me or not?”

I hold out my hand and he takes it, getting to his feet.

“Look, I’ve gone a little mad myself this past year. I think I understand now what could twist a person to be so lost like you were. Of course, I didn’t turn into a raging boar and rampage around the countryside for five years. But I felt my sanity slipping. And if it can happen to me because of nothing but boredom, I think I understand how it could happen to you with all the dark shit you went through,” I say. I struggle for words for a moment then add, “I don’t hate you anymore. I haven’t for quite some time. So stop fucking hating yourself and pull yourself together, alright?”

He nods and I see strength and assurance return to his manner.

“Teleport spells can only go a mile at the farthest. They will be close by,” he says. “Sterling wouldn’t have taken Sylvain back into the city, not if he meant to kill him. He would have gone farther north.”

“What do we do with Morcliff? We can’t leave him here.”

“We cannot set foot in that house again for a while,” Dimitri replies. “Let us bar the door and leave him. We will have to come back for him. He certainly isn’t escaping. We bound him too tightly.”

“Fine.”

I run back to the house, slowly my steps warily as I approach. Taking a deep breath, I hold it as I approach the door, shutting it quickly and dragging one of the chairs on the porch to block it.

After I return to Dimitri, the two of us set out northwards. There is a fence and a copse of trees behind the house and we bolt past them, out into the rolling hills and open fields. My steps falter as I walk and I have to fight to not stumble and fall. But I force my shaking legs to keep running and my body, pushed far past its limit, to push further still. 

I make it about half a mile before I trip over a marmot burrow. Throwing my hands out to stop my fall, I manage to land on my hands and knees, but the impact still staggers me a bit, my head feeling faint.

“Felix!” Dimitri says, taking my arm and pulling me to my feet. “What’s wrong? Are you injured?”

“No, I’m just-” I cut off the sentence with a growl of frustration and yank my arm out of Dimitri’s grip.

_“I believe in you with more certainty than I believe in anything else. And I love you with everything in me.”_

Sylvain’s words echo through my mind and I start running again.

You’re not dying before me, Sylvain. I won’t allow it. I will run until I drop dead to find you.

* * *

###  **Sylvain**

The demon has stopped teleporting altogether, but he doesn’t flee. Perhaps his kind will kill him if he returns defeated without tying up the loose ends of his experiment and silencing the witnesses. Or perhaps he is just as stubborn a bastard as me.

We cease our circling, both of us heaving for breath and glaring each other down, twenty feet of distance between us that feels uncrossable.

My magic is all but exhausted and if he lands another hit on me, I might not be able to heal it. Maybe I should just run and live another day. Felix will kill me if I die here.

As soon as the thought enters my mind, I push it away forcefully. Absolutely not. I won’t break my promise to Felix and die before him, but neither will I back down and allow this thing to get away so it can return with reinforcements and kill us in our sleep.

I will just win. I have no other choice.

An idea occurs to me, but I realize that it bears a distinct risk, for instead of falling for it the demon could just choose to flee. 

I eye him analytically, searching his expression and body language. No, I don’t think he will. He hasn’t given up yet. He thinks he can wear me down and he is willing to bear the fight to finally get the drop on me. If I run, he will follow.

The demon stands up a little straighter and his image shimmers then the disguise of Sterling’s body returns. His magic is regenerating. If he has the energy to cast one last teleport spell… 

Putting a hand on my waist, I lean over slightly and exaggerate my heaving breaths to look even more exhausted than I am. I look up at him with a defeated expression and, through clenched teeth, I say, “Fuck you. When you come back to finish us off, I’ll be ready. Don’t think you can catch us slipping.”

Sterling laughs hoarsely but before he can reply, I turn and bolt towards the nearby hill, forcing my legs to run as fast as they can. I hear Sterling curse in frustration and before I make it more than a stone’s throw away, I stumble and fall to the ground.

I stay down as if the wind has been knocked from my lungs, but my whole body tenses in preparation. Each time he casts the teleport spell there is an almost imperceptible noise like a rush of wind. I didn’t notice it until the fifth or sixth time he used it.

I hold my breath and listen. For a second I hear only the muffled thud of footsteps in the sand then-

_whoosh_

Pushing myself off the ground, I see him materialize beside me and I hurl myself at him, tackling him to the ground. I try to grab his arm as he stabs the dagger at me but I can’t get to it in time. My only choice is to seize the blade of the weapon in my hand. I feel it bite into my hand, slicing through my flesh and hitting bone. But better my hand than my heart.

With a yell of pain, I wrench the blade from him and throw it to the side. Clamping my bloodied hands on his wrists, I grapple desperately with him, drawing on every last reserve of strength I have.

He thrashes against my grip, his face flickering wildly between Sterling’s and his own and strangled sounds of anger punctuating his gasping breaths. For one terrifying moment, he starts to get the upper hand on me, then I double down and wrestle him into control until he is pinned to the ground underneath me.

Now! Do it, Sylvain. No mercy!

My hands move to his throat and I throttle him ruthlessly, holding nothing back. The time has passed to try to knock him out and incapacitate him. Now he just needs to die.

But I have never killed a man with my bare hands before. Despite all the battles I have fought, I was never caught without a weapon and there was always someone to have my back should things go south. It is a brutal thing - so much slower and uglier than a stab to the heart with a lance.

Expressions of agony contort his face and he tries to pry my hands away but lack of oxygen is weakening him and he cannot overcome my panic-fueled grip. I squeeze harder, watching as he chokes and flails and his eyes stare frantically and pleadingly up at the sky, begging for rescue that doesn’t come.

It is an eternity before his thrashing slows to dying twitches then stills altogether. He sags limply against the ground, his features resting into those of the demon once more, all traces of humanity gone.

Keeping one hand clenched tight around his throat, I feel for his heartbeat with the other until I am sure he is dead. Finally I release my grip and lean back, inhaling a deep breath and exhaling slowly. 

I try to cast a healing spell on my mangled hand but I only have the energy to seal it halfway. It is enough to slow the bleeding, though. 

For several minutes, I sit on top of the body, waiting carefully for any signs of life returning to the corpse. Who knows what these demons are capable of. Then once I am fairly sure he is gone for good, I get to my feet. I stand over him, staring down at his bloodied, deathly pale face, my stomach twisting with nausea. 

The sound of a voice in the distance startles me and I turn around and see two figures rounding the bend of the hill. I know instantly from the tall silhouette that one of them is Dimitri and my heart leaps with the realization that he is still alive.

Then I hear Felix’s voice scream my name furiously and all rational thought slips away from my mind as I am flooded with a feeling of relief and joy so intense it aches. I didn’t think I had the energy to run, but my legs move of their own accord, stumbling and racing across the field towards him.

In a moment, we reach each other and Felix tackles me, knocking me back and staggering me to my knees. He clings to me so frantically I can barely breathe, but I hold him even tighter, burying my face in his neck as tears come to my eyes.

Too overwhelmed to know what to say, I just whisper, “I love you.”

A choked noise somewhere between a growl and a sob comes from Felix and he pulls back to grab my face in my hands and kiss me roughly. He doesn’t stop until I am so out of breath I am worried I might pass out. When he finally lets go of my face, I laugh nervously and catch my breath.

I glance up and see Dimitri watching us with wide eyes and a slightly uncomfortable look on his face. 

Felix turns around and glares at him. “What?” he demands.

“Nothing, I just-” he stammers, then recovers his composure and says, “I’m glad to see you alive, Sylvain.”

He looks past me at the demon’s body on the ground and asks, “You managed to kill him then?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“What was he?” I ask.

“I do not know for certain. But his kind have been behind many of the darkest tragedies in Fódlan. We know very little of them but Byleth and I have been trying to investigate as best we can,” Dimitri says grimly. “But come, even here in an empty field I am hesitant to discuss these matters. Let’s get you home so you can recover, then we will speak of this again. In spite of our victory today, I fear this could be the first strike in what could be another war.”


	17. The Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspector Agust puts together the last pieces of the puzzle and Dimitri returns to Fhirdiad to investigate Those Who Slither in the Dark, fearing that even though it has only been a couple years since the war with the empire, another battle might be coming and this time with a much darker enemy.
> 
> (Oh and like Sylvain & Felix are adorable.)

## 17 - THE CONFESSION

###  **Felix**

I awake from vague, chaotic dreams after sleeping for so long that I’m not even sure what year it is. It takes me a few minutes to become aware of my surroundings and return fully to consciousness. 

Soft morning sunlight is peeking through the gaps in the curtains, falling in lines across Sylvain’s sleeping face. He is curled up on the bed next to me, hugging his pillow, one of his legs slung over mine as if he needed to maintain physical contact of some kind even while asleep.

A soft rumble beside me causes me to turn around and I see Wolfie sitting on my other side, paws tucked under himself so he resembles a fat loaf of bread. With a smile, I reach over and pet him. For once he doesn’t stalk off in a huff. He rubs his head against my hand and purrs louder.

“You big softie,” I whisper and he squints angrily at me even though he keeps purring. “Yeah, me too. It’s disgusting, isn’t it?” I say.

Finally Wolfie decides that he is too cool for affection and jumps off the bed, perching on his favorite spot on the windowsill and batting aside the curtain with his paw. The flood of light wakes Sylvain and he mumbles something groggily.

He bolts up and looks over to stare at me with wide eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I… Nothing, just a dream.” He reaches over to hug me and as we lie back on the pillows, cuddled in each other’s arms, he murmurs, “Don’t get out of bed yet, okay? Stay here with me for a little bit.”

“I’m hungry,” I protest.

“Tough.”

“Fine.”

I tuck my head against Sylvain’s neck, breathing in the scent of his skin and resting in the incredible warmth of his presence.

“Did you sleep finally?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Thank the goddess. You had me worried out of my mind.”

“You were worried?” I scoff. “You fucking vanished into thin air to fight that thing on your own! Unarmed!”

He kisses the top of my head. “But I survived. I kept my promise to you, and I always will. I’m not dying before you.”

“Good. You’d better outlive me, you bastard.”

“Statistically unlikely, given that I’m older than you and all this stress will age me prematurely. But I’ll do my best.”

“Are you going to start getting gray hair?” I ask.

“Would you still love me if I did?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

He laughs softly and I smile. Humor isn’t exactly my forte. I’m pretty shit at it, to be honest. So every time I can make him laugh, it makes me feel pleased and even proud in a silly way. I love that sound - not the quick, loud laugh he gives freely in public or the nervous one that comes from him when he doesn’t know what to say. I love this quiet, genuine one with no intent to entertain or disarm, and I make a promise to myself to learn how to elicit it better.

His hands travel idly across my back, palms pressing against my skin, fingers tracing aimless designs here and there. After a few minutes he rolls me onto my back, pressing his body as close as he can without crushing me. His lips find mine and he kisses me slowly and sleepily. 

It isn’t like the tentative, exploring kisses we shared at first while we were still learning each other’s bodies, nor is it like the desperate kisses with which we frantically sought to comfort our fear and stress. It’s just calm and familiar, rich with the kind of stunning intimacy I didn’t even know I was capable of.

I could push my tongue into his mouth, rake my fingernails across his back, escalate it into something rougher and more sensual. But I can’t bring myself to rush through this lingering, intoxicating gentleness.

After all, we are not going to die tomorrow. We have all the time in the world now, don’t we? There are still dark things on the horizon for us, but here in this moment, the danger has passed and I have him all to myself without an immediate fear of losing him. I can take my time.

Sylvain murmurs a soft _mmm_ of satisfaction and his hand strays to my hair, combing through the tangles for a minute before he stops and rests his palm on my cheek, cradling my face as he tilts his head and deepens the kiss. 

I don’t know how long we stay like this; I lose track of time and everything else except his warm mouth and strong hands and the weight of his body on top of mine. 

How is it that I spent years imagining every detail of what it would be like to be with him and yet it is so much more than I ever could have expected? It’s overwhelming, really: the reality of him. 

He must be thinking the same thing because he pauses to whisper, “I never thought I could love someone this much.”

I don’t have adequate words to express what I want to say so I stay silent, brushing my fingers through his messy hair and smiling up at him. He looks a little embarrassed at his own declaration and hides his face in my neck as he blushes. Then his lips start wandering across my skin, making me shiver.

He notices my reaction and kisses me more intently, nipping at my skin every so often then following the tiny bites of pain with the comfort of his lips and tongue.

I shift restlessly beneath him, self-conscious at the physical effect he is having on me. We just woke up, after all. We should probably get up and have some breakfast or- 

Sylvain starts to roll his hips against mine and I can’t ignore the desire he is provoking in me anymore. I can feel my own arousal mirrored in his body as he nudges my legs apart and grinds his hardening dick against my thigh. I curl my fingers into his hair, yanking his head up so he stops kissing my neck and returns to my lips instead.

Changing my mind about taking it slow, I slip my tongue into his mouth to play with his. He moans and sucks on it a bit, saliva slicking his lips as he turns the kiss into something hungry and urgent. I tug the waist of his pants down and push my hand between our bodies, closing my fingers around his dick and stroking my thumb across its head. As he bucks into my grip, his quiet hums become deep groans low in his throat. He stops kissing me and hangs his head heavily on my shoulder, his racing breaths and wet lips hot against my skin.

“Fee,” he whispers, his tone raw and pleading. The few times we have done this he has been so calm and self-assured, but now he is completely undone, melting at my touch, his facade of control gone.

“Get on your back,” I say and when he hesitates, I grow bolder. “Now!”

He obeys the order and I smile a little smugly at him. But before I can move on top of him, a knock on the door shatters the moment.

“Go away!” I say.

Sylvain swears under his breath and it sounds almost like a whine.

“My lord, Inspector Agust and King Blaiddyd wish to speak to you,” Oliver says in a firm, brisk tone.

“They can wait!” I snap.

“My lord-”

Sylvain heaves a deep sigh and sits up, closing his eyes, his expression strained as he focuses on calming down his arousal. “Go,” he says. “We can do this later.”

“I want you now!” I whisper.

He laughs breathlessly. “Oh I know. But there are more important things for us to see to.”

I want to protest that in this moment I can’t think of a single thing more important than fucking his brains out. But the rational side of me knows he is right and I fight back my impatience and desire and get out of bed, pulling on clothes.

“Tell him I will be there in a minute,” I say.

“Yes, my lord,” Oliver replies and his footsteps recede down the hall.

“You’re going to be the death of me, Fee,” Sylvain says as he walks over to the wash basin on the table by the mirror and splashes cold water on his face. He shudders and sighs, then gets dressed too.

“Come on. Let’s go,” he mutters and I follow him out to the living room where Agust and Dimitri are waiting. 

Oliver has set plates of food on the coffee table and a teapot and I help myself to some breakfast and sit down on the sofa across from Dimitri and Agust with a slightly resentful, “Good morning.”

“How are you both doing? Are you recovering from your wounds?” Dimitri asks worriedly.

“We’re fine,” I answer. “What updates do you have?”

“Morcliff has recovered fully from the drug’s effects and he is talking,” Agust says. “A lot of what he says doesn’t make much sense and he often seems to get caught up in paranoia, saying that none of this matters because ‘they’ will come to kill him before he can betray them. He says to go ahead and hang him because it will be quicker than what ‘they’ will do to him. I assume by ‘they’ he refers to whatever it was that killed Sterling and took his body.”

I glance warily at Dimitri and he nods slightly. “Inspector Agust helped me to discreetly dispose of its body,” he says, answering my unspoken question. “He has been sworn to secrecy on the matter.” Dimitri looks at Agust. “A promise I trust he will keep for the good of his country.”

The inspector nods gravely. “You have my word, your highness.”

“I have pressed Morcliff for as much information as possible on ‘Those Who Slither in the Dark,’ as they call themselves. What he has told me, I have written into a report and will take with me back to Fhirdiad for Byleth and I to analyze. This investigation she and I have been doing on our own has become our highest priority now, I’m afraid. These witches are coming out of the woodwork again and we cannot allow them to start another war.”

“How can we help?” Sylvain asks to my surprise. I figured he would not be keen on getting wrapped up in conflict of any kind after finally restoring some peace and safety to our lives.

“I do not yet know,” Dimitri answers. “But when it comes time for a fight and your courage and strength are needed to defend Fódlan, I will send for you. You two are my best and most trusted warriors. I am grateful you are willing to stand by me again should it be necessary.”

“I’ll keep my blade sharp just in case,” I say. 

“Did it ever grow dull?” Dimitri asks with a small smile and I glare at him.

“It seems we don’t know enough or just can’t talk too much about Those Who Slither in the Dark at the moment, so I’d like to focus on getting some other answers,” Sylvain speaks up.

“About the murders?” Agust says and Sylvain and I nod.

“The story is a strange but simple one once pieced together,” Agust explains. “Francis Morcliff was working for these witches. He kidnapped his victims for them to use in whatever experiments. In return, he got to… use them for his own means first before handing them over.”

“Which is why they never found the bodies of his other victims,” I say to Dimitri.

He nods and says, “When Francis was imprisoned, his son Hamish was left at their mercy. They experimented on him instead. Exactly what they did and the purpose of these experiments is something we cannot get Hamish to tell us. Perhaps with more interrogation he will break. At the moment he grows incoherent and terrified when we press him to talk about it. Whatever the case, his mind has obviously been damaged and his hatred for you and Sylvain has been stoked into a psychotic obsession.”

“So they got a chance to test one of their weapons without it being traced back to them. And as soon as it was, Sterling threw Hamish to the wolves so we would close the case,” Sylvain adds. “He said something to that effect while I fought him.”

“So it appears,” Agust says. “There are still questions that remain to be answered, but I am confident that the human element of these matters has been solved. Whether or not more of these witches return to cause trouble, I don’t know. But with Asmer dead and Hamish behind bars, we have done all that we can to bring those responsible to justice.”

I take a bite of a scone, my heart feeling heavy and my mind resentful that I was forced to leave the comfort of a happy mood for this brooding, grim one. But I couldn’t shut myself away from the real world, even for Sylvain. This all needs to be faced and as the duke it is my job to handle it.

Even with Hamish arrested and likely to be executed, it does nothing to repair the loss of my community. His victims are still dead and nothing can bring them back. I can hope that justice and retribution will be of some comfort to their families, but it won’t heal the damage. It won’t matter in their day-to-day lives as they miss the people they lost. 

I know that better than anyone. Seeing Edelgard’s corpse didn’t ease any of the painful grief of losing friends in the war she caused. And what dark satisfaction there was in avenging them ultimately felt hollow and pointless once I realized it couldn’t fill that void left behind after their deaths.

What can I do for the people who feel that now because of Asmer and Morcliff? They’re my citizens. I should help them.

“What do you need from me at the moment, Inspector?” I ask.

“At the moment, I imagine your physicians have advised you to rest. I cannot stop you from questioning Morcliff but I would request that you refrain from doing so. He has been cooperative with us, but the sight of you or Margrave Gautier could turn his mood or send him into a psychotic state. We need him calm and talkative. You will likely only destabilize him.”

“I understand. I will leave the matter in your hands. Please send me another report this evening,” I say.

I catch Sylvain and Dimitri watching me curiously and I realize that they’ve never really heard me use my serious, business-like Duke Fraldarius voice. 

Damn them. Now I feel ridiculous.

“Very well, my lord,” Agust says, standing up and giving me a short bow.

“One more thing, Inspector,” I say.

He pauses on his way to the door and gives me a questioning look. 

“Next time you keep information from me and lock me up so that you can pursue your own plans without me getting in the way, please have the decency to at least offer food and water.”

“My lord, I…” Agust’s professional manner fades a bit and he says with a frank expression, “I had not entirely ruled out the possibility that you were behind the killings. I was not just buying myself time to find Sterling. I was killing two birds with one stone. I hope you understand.”

“I understand that you do not know me well and that I have a reputation for being… well, myself. But I should hope that you and I understand each other better now,” I reply.

“I believe we do, my lord.”

“So food and water next time. Maybe some tea.”

“Yes, my lord,” he says, giving me another stiff bow, although there is a hint of a smile in the corner of his lips. 

After he leaves the room, I pour myself another cup of tea and lounge back on the sofa in a more relaxed manner. Sylvain snuggles up next to me and puts his arm around my waist.

I glance over at Dimitri and there is a bit of a faraway look in his eyes. “It’s funny,” he says quietly. “You sound just like him sometimes.” I tense up and Dimitri gives me an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I should not have reminded you of-”

“I’m nothing like Rodrigue,” I say sharply.

“Rodrigue?” Dimitri shakes his head. “No, that is not who I was thinking of. You sound like Glenn. He was so casual and teasing around us, but when he was in a position of responsibility leading troops, he was stern but kind. He always had a sense of humor still. You just reminded me of him for a moment. I am sorry for bringing it up.”

His words stun me a bit and I feel Sylvain tuck his arm around me tighter in a small gesture of encouragement. Even after all these years it is still hard to hear Glenn’s name sometimes.

“I saw him in Morcliff’s house while we were hallucinating,” I say for some reason.

“Me too,” Dimitri says softly. “I saw everyone.”

“I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”

“Please, don’t apologize. I might not have been much help to you, but I am glad I was here. And if nothing else, what you have uncovered is important information for me. I wish I could stay here with you two for a while, but I must return to Fhirdiad immediately. I intend to leave within the hour. I’m sorry.”

“Before you go, I have a question for you,” I say.

“What is it?”

“How do I-” I set my cup down and rest my elbows on my knees, leaning forward and staring at the floor as I wrestle with my thoughts. “You have spent two years patching up all of Fódlan after a war. What do you do for the people left behind - the ones who lost family and friends in the bloodshed? How do I help the families of Morcliff’s victims? They’ll get their vengeance when he hangs, but it isn’t enough.”

Dimitri gives a thoughtful _hm_ and considers the question for a moment. Then he answers, “To some extent, there is nothing you can do. You can never bring back what was lost. All you can do is prevent further loss. Be on the lookout for more threats. Learn how to work with people like Inspector Agust instead of against them. And show your people that you will fight for them no matter the personal risk, which is what you proved yesterday. Perhaps they won’t trust you for quite some time after all this. But they will know that when a threat comes, you are willing to lay down your life to protect them from it.”

“Wise words, Dima,” Sylvain says.

He smiles sadly. “I cannot take credit for them. Byleth told them to me.”

“Must be useful having a wise archbishop for a wife.”

“It often is, yes,” he replies.

“Tell her something from me when you get back to Fhirdiad, will you?” Sylvain says. “Tell her that I followed her wise advice and it finally paid off.”

“What advice?” Dimitri asks.

“Tell her about Felix and me and she’ll know what I mean.”

Dimitri raises his eyebrows. “What exactly am I to tell her? I’m not sure I understand what is going on between-”

“We’re in love! That’s what’s going on,” Sylvain says.

“You’re what?”

“Oh for the love of Seiros, don’t look so astonished,” Sylvain says. “Surely after all these years with us this shouldn’t be coming as a shock to you.”

“It was a shock to you!” I argue. “If you had no idea, why should anyone else? It’s not like I was obvious about it!”

“That’s because I’m an idiot! I figured the king of our whole damn country would have enough discernment to have picked up on all the years of pining.”

Judging by Dimitri's startled expression, I’m guessing he didn’t.

“Fucking hell,” I swear. “We’re a whole group of idiots, aren’t we?”

“I suppose so.”

Sylvain swears and stands up. The momentary levity in his expression fades to a look of determination and he asks Dimitri, “If you have an hour before you leave, will you help us with something?”

“Of course.”

“Saddle your horse. I want to go for a ride.”

“Where to?” I ask.

“The woods.”

I’m not sure what Sylvain wants, but I follow him to the stable and after we have readied our horses, we set out towards the forest until we come to the head of the old Lupine Trail.

“Why are we coming back here?” I ask.

“Because I am not going to let that bastard take our favorite place in the world away from us,” he says.

He spurs his horse forward and enters the shelter of the forest. For a while we ride in silence with each other, passing by familiar landmarks. The cloudless sky and strong sunshine fill the shady woods with crystal-clear light and I watch it glitter on the river and illuminate the patches of wildflowers lining its banks.

“Most of my best memories from our childhood were in these woods,” Sylvain says. “I want to be able to come back here and remember them instead of remembering what happened here recently.”

Dimitri nods, too lost in thought to reply. He hasn’t been back here since before the war and I imagine it is a bittersweet sight for him. 

“We were so young…” he says, a pained hoarseness in his voice.

“We are still young,” Sylvain replies firmly. “Maybe you two forget that with all your grim seriousness, but I am here to remind you that you are even younger than me and I am not even in my prime yet! Our lives are really just beginning. Someday your children will come play in these woods with good old Uncle Sylvain and Felix, Dima. And they will have all kinds of good adventures like we did.”

“And get into all kinds of trouble, most likely,” he says with a faint smile.

“I don’t know what you mean. Felix and I will be excellent role models for them.”

“Shut up, Sylvain,” I speak up. “I’m not letting him dump his stupid brats off at my house. I’m not a babysitter.”

“Oh come on. Who else will teach them to be the greatest swordsmen in Faerghus?”

“Byleth,” I answer. “It’s not my responsibility.”

“I am not about to have children any time soon,” Dimitri says.

“Sure,” Sylvain replies. “I give it another year. People always have kids once their marriage starts getting boring.”

“My marriage is not growing boring, thank you very much.”

“Good to know. But I still intend to have nieces and nephews someday.”

“You’re not actually his brother. They wouldn’t be related to you,” I say.

“Shut up, Fee. We’re family. Blood has nothing to do with it.”

He chatters lightly with us as we ride through the trails and by the time we have used up our hour and turned back towards the manor house, the forbidding feeling cast over the woods has somewhat lifted and it begins to feel like they belong to us once again.

I study the determined smile on his face and the way his eyes light up when he goads Dimitri into making a joke. How does he do this? How does he make things feel normal again after the nightmare we have endured recently?

This is what I have missed so deeply during that year we were apart. This is why I was going out of my mind, trapped in a silence I couldn’t figure out how to break. I need him for this. Our fucked up world is too overwhelming without him.


	18. The Last Gautier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sylvain & Felix try to stay in the moment to enjoy their hard-earned peace and deepening romance, but their reprieve from reality is difficult to maintain as their thoughts keep turning to the terrifying words of the demon who claimed Those Who Slither in the Dark aren't just bent on conquering Fodlan, but exterminating it.
> 
> Still, reality - no matter how grim - is far less frightening when they are together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After 50k words of murder and angst, here is a chapter of Sylvix having heart to heart talks about the terrifying world they live in then fucking their brains out - as a treat... (to myself. This was a stressful story to write and it did not have nearly enough sex in it for my taste).
> 
> Anyways, thank you for joining me on this journey, fellow Sylvix lovers! Your encouragement has made writing this so much fun!  
> Leave me a comment suggesting other Fire Emblem stories you like so I can read them! I appreciate any recommendations!
> 
> Also, SHOULD I WRITE A SEQUEL ABOUT THE BLUE LIONS HUNTING DOWN THOSE WHO SLITHER IN THE DARK??? I'm paralyzed with indecision. Help.
> 
> Update: April 2020: THERE IS IN FACT A SEQUEL. It is about happy Sylvix and angsty Ferdibert.

##  **18 - THE LAST GAUTIER**

###  **Sylvain**

“I will send word to you as soon as I consult with Byleth on all that happened here,” Dimitri says, falling serious when we reach the house. “Wait for my letter. If we gather enough information to know what we are up against and it leads to a battle, I will need your help. I am sorry to drag you away from your homes now that things have stabilized in Gautier territory and peace has been restored here, but-”

“Fuck peace,” Felix interrupts. “If you have a need for my blade, just ask for it. If this peace we have in Fódlan isn’t going to last, then I’d rather take on a battle now and confront the problem head-on than wait for it to escalate.”

He nods. “As would I.”

I hug Dimitri goodbye but Felix just sort of fondly and awkwardly punches his arm and says, “Get going, boar. You have work to do.”

“Indeed. Farewell. Be safe. And… uh… congratulations.”

Felix raises his eyebrows at him and Dimitri gestures at me.

“You should be congratulating him!” Felix snaps as I laugh. “He’s the one who got the better end of the deal.”

Dimitri laughs uneasily and says, “If you say so.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Felix demands, but Dimitri just swings up into the saddle of his horse and rides away.

“I’ve missed that son of a bitch,” I say with a smile, watching him leave the courtyard of the manor and disappear from view.

“Well we might be stuck seeing him again soon,” Felix says.

“Let’s hope it’s not too soon. I won’t shy away from a fight, but even if it’s selfish, I want some time to live my life for a while. I have been so wrapped up in responsibility that I haven’t had a chance to pursue what I really want in life.”

“And what’s that?”

I walk over to Felix and take his face in my hands, kissing him deeply. “You, my love.”

He bristles a bit and says, “Stop saying ridiculous shit like that.”

Oh so he’s back to being prickly bitch Felix now? Damn cat. One moment he wants to be petted, the next he’s scratching your hand when you try to touch him.

I kiss him again stubbornly and say, “Never.”

“‘Congratulations,’” he mutters, turning away with a huff and swearing at Dimitri under his breath.

Deciding to give him some time to stew, I go back into the house and take a bath. A long soak in the hot water eases the aches and pains in my body from the pounding I took in the fight yesterday and it soothes the tension brought on by constant stress. It is good to have some time to myself to process all that has happened and steady my mind.

But as I get out of the bath and set to work shaving my face and fixing my hair, I pause, staring at my reflection in the mirror. Most of the time I can forget about that damn scar but sometimes when I see it, it’s all I can focus on. It’s a bitter reminder of what happens when I let down my guard and assume that my life will not be one of danger and violence anymore. 

We ended a war, but did we really achieve peace? Is true peace something I will ever see in my lifetime? 

_“One day we will walk your land and rebuild it once the heaps of your corpses rot into the ground and the rivers of your blood dry into the dirt.”_

I shiver as I remember the cold certainty with which the demon spoke those words. He believed them absolutely. 

Then a thought occurs to me that makes me uncomfortable. Is Felix looking forward to another war? He offered his blade to Dimitri so eagerly. And maybe I am imagining things, but I could swear there was even a hint of longing in his voice. Peace does not suit him. 

Safety is one of the things I have longed for my whole life. As a child I clung to the refuge of my time at Fraldarius manor where Felix’s bright energy could lift my dejected spirits and the security of Glenn’s strong presence protecting us could assuage any fear I had of Miklan finding me here. 

At the monastery, my faith in Byleth offered some reassurance. I trusted that no matter what happened she would keep us safe. 

But during the war… Nowhere was safe and I believed nothing with certainty. The others might have fought for the good of Fódlan, but me? I got up every day, polished my armor and sharpened my weapons just so that someday I wouldn’t have to anymore. Someday I wouldn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder for danger or lying awake at night worrying about losing my friends. Someday I could just live my life, free of all this.

I thought we finally had that, and even though peace was lonely and burdened with overwhelming responsibility, it was safe. 

But we were never safe. A moment of carelessness in a random encounter with bandits and I almost lost my head. A simple visit to Felix and now a handful of murder victims are buried in fresh graves.

Edelgard wanted to conquer Fódlan. Whoever these witches are with their dirty weapons and strange magic - they want to exterminate us. 

“Sylvain?” Felix calls, knocking on the door. “Did you drown?”

I paste a smile on my face to hide my dark mood and wrap a towel around my waist, then open the door.

“I just want to look my best for you,” I say. “I’ve got to make sure I’m on point and dressed to impress.”

“You’re naked.”

“Exactly.”

He rolls his eyes, even though a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. But as he looks at me for a minute, worry creases his brow. “What’s wrong?”

Shit. I should have known Felix is not so easily fooled by quips and false smiles.

“Nothing in particular,” I answer. “It’s just… It is hard to bounce back quickly after what we’ve been through these past couple weeks. There’s no point in wallowing in the past once there’s nothing more we can do to fix it, but I still won’t rest easy for a bit. I doubt you will either.”

He gestures towards his room and says, “Come.”

I reach for my clothes but he says, “Forget those. Come on.”

“Oh my.”

“Stop it.”

He closes the door to his chamber behind us and locks it, then goes over to the bed and sits down on the edge of it. “Talk,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Considering I’m here alone with you and quite naked, I’d rather-”

“Talk,” he orders again, patting the bed beside him.

I sit down and ruffle my half-dried hair with my fingers. “What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever you need to.”

After hesitating for a moment, I gather my courage and say, “If I ask you a question will you answer it honestly?”

“Why the hell would I lie to you about anything?”

“Because the truth might not be easy to admit.”

“Try me,” he says.

“What drove you crazy this past year? Do you miss…”

“The war?”

“Yeah.”

Felix frowns thoughtfully. “No, I don’t actually. I didn’t fight in it for the hell of it, despite what some people thought.”

“You seemed almost relieved when Dimitri said there might be another one coming.”

Lifting his eyes to meet mine, Felix stares back at me with grave earnestness. “I don’t enjoy being in danger. I don’t get a thrill from killing. I’ve spent my life trying to become stronger so that I can win fights, not because I’m looking to start them. What I missed from the war was having a purpose. Everything was so clear then - to help, I needed to wield my blade and that was something I was good at. I’ve gone crazy because I was alone and lost, not because I didn’t have battles to fight anymore.”

“So it’s not peace you hate, then? If we were to ever have peace - true peace - you wouldn’t be unhappy?”

He fumbles a bit and glances away, answering quietly, “If I were alone again, I would be.”

“And if you weren’t alone?”

“What is it you’re getting at? What is it you want to know? This all seems fairly obvious to me,” he says.

“I want to know for sure that you and I want the same things from our lives. Because what I want is to be happy and to be safe.”

“I think you being safe would make me happy," Felix says. He studies my expression and adds, “Are you afraid that I’ll get bored of you? Is that what this is about?”

“I’ve always been afraid of that.”

He looks at me angrily. Then he grabs me and kisses me so hard it overwhelms me and I struggle to keep up with him, wrapping my arms around him as he shoves me down onto my back and kisses me even more roughly.

“Why the fuck would I get bored of being happy? You know how insane that sounds?” he growls. “You make me happier than anything in this damn world. I wouldn’t give that up for anything. Sure, if we have to go to war again, I’ll fight and I’ll fight hard. But I’ll fight so that we can end it quickly and go home so I can spend my days laughing at the dumb shit you say and fucking you every day.”

He is propped up on top of me, staring into my eyes so intensely it takes my breath away. All I can think to say is, “Every day?”

“Oh I’m sorry, is that too much for you?” he challenges.

The way he is looking at me makes saying anything coherent and even remotely clever difficult. But considering the fact that my towel got pushed aside and I’m naked beneath him, I think he can tell exactly what I am thinking.

“Normally after a week like this, I’d go train until I dropped dead from exhaustion. But I’d rather fuck you right now instead. It will accomplish the same thing,” he says.

“If that’s how you want to blow off steam, go ahead,” I reply, my voice coming out in a shaky whisper.

“That’s not all I want,” he argues, getting up and taking off his clothes. 

“What do you want then?”

As he tosses aside the last item of clothing, he climbs back on top of me and grabs my wrists, pinning them down above my head. “I want to make you come so hard you stop thinking yourself in circles and worrying about everything,” he says before kissing me.

The next few minutes are a rush of tangled limbs, desperate kisses and the abandonment of all stress and self-consciousness. Then before I know it I’m on my knees beside the bed, one of his legs slung over my shoulder and his hard, flushed dick in my mouth.

“I thought- I thought I said- I was going to- fuck you-” he manages to say between gasps, closing his eyes and clutching at fistfulls of the sheets.

I reply by moving my head down until my nose hits his skin and he is so deeply in my throat I almost choke. 

“Shit!” he swears breathlessly. “Oh fuck… Sylvain- wait. Stop, stop.”

I pause and pull his dick out of my mouth, stroking it with my fingers and looking up at him in concern. “What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Fuck, that feels good. But I don’t want you to just- I want it to feel good for you too. I’m tired of going back and forth like this. I want more. Come here.”

He holds out his hand and tugs me onto the bed, then he opens the nightstand drawer and fumbles around in it for a moment before finding a small bottle and handing it to me.

I look at him with wide eyes and he must see the excitement in them because he smiles at me. “Unless you don’t want to, of course,” he says, his tone mockingly coy.

Dear goddess, help me.

He settles down onto his back and raises his eyebrows insistently. Heart pounding, I pull his hips closer and pour a little of the oil onto my fingers. As I lean down and kiss him, I slip a finger into him and he gasps against my lips.

I move slowly, concerned about how tight he is but also how impatient he seems. After a minute, he starts thrusting down against me and kissing me desperately.

“Fee,” I murmur. “Take it slow.”

He sighs and relaxes a bit, muttering a curse. I slip in a second finger and carefully gauge the signals of his body to see if I am hurting him or not. I doubt a little pain will faze Felix, but I’ll be damned if I rush this.

To soothe some of his impatience, I lean down to run my tongue across the head of his dick, drawing a gasp and a shudder from him. I tease him enough to keep him aroused but not enough to make him come. Finally when he is ready, I add a third finger and cautiously watch the expressions that pass across his face. His brow furrows a bit with shock at the sudden strain, then his eyes close and he puts his hand over his mouth as he moans quietly. 

“Come on. Sylvain-”

The sound of him saying my name like that breaks some of my composure and I finger him harder, seeing how much he can take. When he doesn’t flinch, I stretch him a bit further and curl my fingers up to stroke at the spot that draws a small cry of pleasure from him.

“Get over here,” he growls, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me up towards him. As my fingers slip out, his breath hitches and he takes the bottle of oil, pouring some onto his palm and taking my dick. His fingers are rough and calloused from years of a sword hilt in his hands, but his touch is just gentle and just strong enough that it feels perfect.

It doesn’t take much to get me hard and as soon as I am, Felix gets up and pushes me over to the pillows to sit up against the headboard. 

“Fee, are you sure-”

He takes my face in his hands and kisses me as he climbs onto my lap. “Stop asking me for permission. You have no idea how much I want this, how many times I’ve imagined you-” He gives up trying to put the thought into words and kisses me again.

I hold him on top of me carefully as I ease inside him, slowly, inch by inch. My heart pounds harder the deeper I go and as I slide in the last little ways and feel Felix’s hot, tight body clenching around me, my eyes roll back and I curse loudly.

As I blink them open again, I realize that he is staring at me with a stunned look, as overwhelmed as I am.

“Oh fuck…” he whispers. “Fuck, you feel good.”

He lifts up a bit and as I push back into him, the sensation makes me dizzy. When I’m sure he is ready, I thrust a little harder and deeper, finding the rhythm that matches his own movements. As I begin to go a faster, he gasps and clamps his hand over his mouth to muffle a moan.

Grabbing his wrist, I yank his hand away and say, “Stop doing that. I want to hear you.”

He starts to reply but I interrupt him by bucking my hips up and thrusting into him roughly. Throwing his arms around me, he rests his head on my neck and moans again. The harder I go, the louder he gets until all of his reserve and composure is stripped away and he is a beautiful, reckless, genuine version of himself I have never seen before.

Every noise that comes from his mouth makes it harder to hold back the swelling pressure and heat in my body and keep from tipping over the edge. I think he is getting close, though. I just need to hold on a little longer.

Tugging his hair free of its knot, I tangle my fingers in it and pull his head back abruptly, punctuating the tug with a sharp thrust. He cries out and I kiss his collarbones and throat. When my lips reach his neck, I bite down on the smooth skin right under his jaw, hard enough to hurt.

The stab of pain drives him out of his mind and he takes control, adjusting the angle slightly and thrusting his hips down to hit mine, fucking himself on my dick with a desperate, demanding eagerness that is so intoxicating it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to come. I groan and distract myself by running my tongue over the bite on his neck and sucking at the bruised skin until I am sure it will leave a mark.

“Fuck! Shit- oh, I’m- so-” he gasps. He tightens around me and I see stars. The orgasm shudders through his whole body and as soon as it runs its course, he goes limp in my arms, his forehead resting against mine as he pants for breath. 

I allow my attention to slip away from him and focus on my own pleasure and after a second I am a swearing, groaning mess too, fucking him with everything I’ve got. He cries out from the over-stimulation but before I start to hurt him, I reach my peak and the dizzying sensation of relief floods my body as I finish.

When I’m done, I exhale a long breath and lean back against the headboard. Felix doesn’t get off me immediately. Instead he takes my face in his hands and kisses me slowly. After the sex we just had, his tenderness surprises me. I rest my hand behind his head gently and kiss him back, losing myself in the simple intimacy of it.

Finally he pulls away and looks at me with a soft smile. But before I can think of anything to say, he climbs off of me and walks away to the washroom to clean up.

With a sigh, I stretch and enjoy the warm haze in my body and mind from the orgasm. When Felix returns, he scowls at me and says, “Why are you smiling like that?”

“I didn’t expect you to be so sweet,” I say.

“Sweet?”

“You heard me.”

He comes over to sit beside me and says, “Don’t call me sweet. It makes me feel physically ill.”

“You are sweet, though. You are the sweetest person I know,” I reply.

“Shut up.”

“Sweet Felix, the most tender of lovers, gentlest of friends, fair as a-”

He curses in frustration and jumps on top of me, putting his hands around my throat. “Stop it.”

But I just smile at him teasingly. He squeezes harder, waiting for me to stop smirking. He obviously doesn’t know my limits yet. It will probably take him a while to find them.

I maintain eye contact with him stubbornly and even though I can’t help but choke a little, I refuse to tap out. After a minute, he grows alarmed and lets go of me, saying, “What the hell? Are you alright?”

“I love it when you throttle me so sweetly and tenderly,” I answer hoarsely.

“Next time I’ll choke you until you black out. Then I’ll just leave and go about my day,” he says.

“That sounds nice. I could use a good nap.”

He swears at me and lies back down. “You’re impossible.”

I settle down next to him and press my lips softly against his cheek, whispering, “There. A sweet kiss for my sweet Felix.”

“Get out of my bed.”

I laugh. “No, I’m done joking around. I’ll be serious for a while. I’m in a serious mood anyways.”

“Are you now?” he asks.

“Yes.”

I gather him into my arms and he snuggles against me, tucking his head under my chin. For a while we stay like that and as the haze of the sex fades, a thought settles in its wake that I can’t ignore.

After a while, I say, “Felix?”

He pulls back to look at me, studying my solemn expression with a concerned look. “What?”

“I love you.”

“Obviously.”

He really isn’t making this easy, is he?

I persevere and say, “I know you know. But those words mean a lot of different things. I said them to you for years because you are my best friend and then I said them to you again because you are the man I am in love with. But now, I realize that when I say them they mean something else entirely.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, his eyes searching mine in confusion.

I falter for a second then reach out and cup his cheek in my hand. “To me, they don’t just describe the way I feel about you anymore. They mean that I want to spend my life with you. I know we have always promised to be friends until the day we die and all that, but I want to alter that promise slightly.”

“Alter how?”

“I don’t want my life to just run alongside yours like a friend’s would. I don’t want to come by for long visits and catch up with you. I want you to be part of my life, every day. I want…” I trail off, at a loss for words. Unable to help a nervous laugh, I say, “Fuck, I’m coming on way too strong.”

“Just speak your mind.”

“Fee-”

“Say it,” he demands.

“I don’t quite know how to put it. It feels way too sudden and yet way too long in coming at the same time. I always knew you and I were tied together for life, but I never dared to hope it would be in this kind of way. Now that there is a chance you might… that I could-”

“Spit it out, Sylvain. Stop beating around the bush.”

I look at him angrily. “I’m trying, alright? I don’t know how to say it! If I were anyone else, I’d pull out a ring right now to make it clear what I’m trying to say but you know how I feel about marriage and how there can’t be any more Gautiers and-”

He looks so stunned for a second you’d think I had slapped him in the face. Then he grabs me and kisses me. When he finally pulls back, all he says is, “Yes.”

“You don’t even know what I’m asking you,” I say.

“I don’t care. Yes.”

I smile, too overwhelmed to reply, and he smiles back, his eyes lighting up. 

Then he stops and squints at me suspiciously. “You’re not just saying this because of the sex, are you? Orgasms can mess with a person’s head, make them say all kinds of crazy bullshit. Whatever ambiguous thing you’re asking for, are you still going to want it later when you’ve cooled off and are thinking rationally again?”

I take his hand and press it to my lips. With every ounce of sincerity I have, I answer, “I promise you, I mean this seriously. In retrospect, this probably was the wrong time to say it. I should have taken you somewhere romantic and popped the question in a moonlit garden or something. But I couldn’t keep it to myself.”

“What question exactly? I still don’t know what I just agreed to.”

“You agreed to be stuck with me for life.”

“Oh hell,” he mutters.

“You can’t go back on your word.”

Felix laughs. “You’re the one who is stuck with me. I should be worried about you going back on your word.”

“You have a point. Maybe Dimitri’s right and you are getting the better end of the deal.”

He sits up and clenches his fingers into a fist, looking at me threateningly until I raise my hands and say, “I was kidding!”

We settle back down and he pulls me into his arms to kiss me.

“You want to get rid of House Gautier as quickly as you can, right?” he asks.

“Yep. That’s the plan. No more crests, no more legacy.”

“Then I have a way to help you end it here and now.”

“Are you going to kill me?” I say with a laugh. “Because I thought we were having a nice moment.”

But he doesn’t laugh too, or even smile. He stares at me with a dead-serious expression and says, “You don’t have to die to get rid of Sylvain Gautier. You could just become Sylvain Fraldarius.”

“Sylvain Jose Fraldarius,” I say, testing the name out. “It has a good ring to it.”

“Speaking of rings…” he says.

My eyes widen as I wonder what the hell has come over him.

“I don’t fucking have one for you! Because I’m not fucking proposing to you. If - _if_ \- I ever decided to ask you, it would be somewhere nice. I’m not some mannerless savage like you who brings up serious things while lying sweaty and naked in bed.”

I laugh and this time he smiles along with me.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get up. I’m starving.”

But as he gets out of bed, he stumbles a bit and swears at his sore body.

“You want me to carry you, my dear?” I ask.

“Fuck off.”

I jump up and scoop him into my arms but he struggles out of them and glares at me. “I’m fine.”

“Alright. Want to go spar then?” 

He winces a bit and I laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t think so,” I add.

“Leave me alone,” he says, getting dressed and walking away.

I put on clothes and follow him to the kitchen, leaning against the counter and watching as he rustles through the cupboards and piles food onto a plate. 

We take it over to the northern room with all the paintings that he knows I like. As we lounge by the fireplace and eat, he falls quiet and his eyes take on a distant look.

“What’s on your mind?” I ask.

“It’s so easy to forget about everything when I’m with you,” he says.

“I work hard to make you forget about the world for a while. It’s the only way we can survive it.”

“I know. But I have to come back to reality eventually and when I do…”

“Fee,” I say, touching his arm and causing him to look over at me. “I don’t know what’s ahead of us - a lot of disturbing things most likely. And if I think about them too much it scares the shit out of me. But when I get overwhelmed by it, I’m going to come find you and let myself forget for a bit. I want you to do the same. When nightmares or insomnia keep you up at night, don’t sneak out of bed anymore. Wake me up. And when I start getting all tangled up in my head, I’ll tell you and you can talk sense into me. Okay?”

He nods.

“That’s how it’s going to be from now on,” I tell him.

Felix doesn’t reply, but he reaches over and takes my hand, squeezing it firmly. The simple gesture reassures me and I smile at him.

“I love you,” I say.

“I love you too.”


End file.
